#Murderbot tap

[paging-possum]

Grips you by the shoulders it is about the fact that ART trusted murderbot to figure out how to fix it about the fact that it went out of its way to find murderbot because it was the one person ART wanted in that moment and it knew it would help it knew it would figure out the code WHICH WAS ITS NAME. it is about the fact that they are both willing to go to such lengths to help one another that they are each others first and closest nonhuman friend they are more or less on the same level in a way they aren’t with humans they trust each other they care about each other they had a child they’re meeting the parents before they move in together they won’t call it a relationship but they do complete each other. They even watch their little shows together.

[squimbusfrommypolls]

The bracket has been completed! Polls will start being posted Wednesday, March 29th, at 2pm cst!

The right half of the bracket will be posted Thursday, March 30th, at 2pm cst!

Each available poll is linked below along with the matchups!

The left side consists of

Randy Jade (Dialtown) vs Shuu Iwamine (Hatoful Boyfriend)

Ticket Jerry (Dialtown) vs Sawyer (Boyfriend Dungeon)

The Eastridge Demon (Dreams of an Insomniac) vs SCP-6059 (SCP Foundation)

Sen (Shoulder a Coffin Kuro) vs Sirius Gibson (Witch’s Heart)

Goobleck (Just Roll With It) vs Shinji Hibiki (UTAU)

Gin Ibushi (Your Turn To Die) vs Alastor (Viewtiful Joe)

Felix White (The Henry Stickmin Collection) vs Lightbulb (Inanimate Insanity)

Denizen Hardwick (Knights of the Borrowed Dark) vs Tomix Danao (Dragonfable)

Goo (Inanimate Insanity) vs Survivor (Rain world)

Pleading Child (Sky: Children of Light) vs Sydney Sargent (Camp Here and There)

Dj Yellow (Rhythm Heaven Ds) vs Biddybud (Super Mario)

Victim (Animation vs Animator) vs WX-78 (Don’t Starve)

Stomp Farmer (Rhythm Heaven Ds) vs Zonic the Zone Cop (Sonic Archie Comics)

2BDamned (Madness Combat) vs Purple (Animation vs Minecraft)

Elliot Schafer (In Other Lands) vs Goldia die Heilige (Pocket Mirror)

Jeff (Clarence) vs The Shapes (Mr Maker)

The right side consists of

Usaida Yoshihito (Gakkuen Babysitters) vs Fuu Hououji (Magic Knights Rayeart)

Gal (Ordem Paranormal) vs Michelle (HaSodot (The Secrets))

Lumi (Cats are Liquid) vs Jack Kennedy (Dayshift at Freddy’s)

Fitz Vacker (Keeper of the Lost Cities) vs Holly Short (Artemis Fowl)

David St Hubbins (This is Spinal Tap) vs Oedipus (The Mechanisms Ulysses)

Gordon Porlock (Red Valley) vs David Ward (I Am In Eskew)

Joe “Mama” Besser (This is Spinal Tap) vs Blogbot (The Mechanisms)

Citron (A3!) vs Caspar (Midnight Burger)

Rosemaster (Cucumber Quest) vs Daemon (Reboot!)

Oliver (Purrgatory) vs Trouble0 (REDACTED Smp)

Vespa Illkay (The Penumbra Podcast) vs Jamiejoan (Dominion Smp)

Lily (Lilys Well) vs Cavum (Moleman Arg)

Kanatsune Ame (Entropic Float) vs Peter Kennedy (Dayshift at Freddy’s)

Crawford Tillinghast (From Beyond) vs Alfred Montbank (Death Gate Cycle)

William Murderface (Metalocalypse) vs Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)

Asuka Toyama (Bang Dream Girls Band Party) vs Reinhard von Lohengramm (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)

[imitationgame77]

Pinging and Tapping

In the world of the Murderbot Diaries, communication is often conducted via comm and feed. Generally, comm is used when internal network is not available, or when one is trying to communicate across space, and feed is used when people are on the same network and allow each other access.

We also often see “pings” and “taps” as a way of quick communication.

Generally, pings are used for comm communications, and taps are used for feed communications, but there seem to be different purposes. Here are what we can gather from the story, and also from real life examples.

[Pings]

Purpose in the MB world:

Pings are typically used for signalling, checking connectivity, and getting responses from other systems or units. They act like a way to see if the other side is present and ready to communicate or respond.

Purpose in Real Life:

Network Connectivity: In computer networks, a "ping" is a diagnostic tool used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer.

Usage in the MB World:

Status Checks: Used to check if systems, such as satellites, drones, or transports, are active and responsive. For example, pinging a satellite to see if it responds​​.

Communication Initiation: Used to start communication with other systems, often to establish a connection or share data. For instance, pinging a transport to offer media files in exchange for a ride​​.

Detection: Used by systems to detect the presence of specific units, like SecUnits, without direct contact​​.

Usage in Real Life:

ICMP Echo Request/Reply: The ping command sends an ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) Echo Request message to the target host and waits for an ICMP Echo Reply.

Network Troubleshooting: Used to determine if a particular host is reachable and to measure the latency between the source and destination.

[Taps]

Purpose in the MB World:

Taps are used more for internal communication within the network or feed. They serve as a means to acknowledge, signal actions, or provide private communication without verbal interaction.

Purpose in Real Life:

Internal Communication: In many systems, "taps" or similar mechanisms are used to signal and communicate internally within a network or system.

Usage in the MB World:

Acknowledgments: Used to acknowledge received messages or instructions. For instance, tapping back an acknowledgment to confirm receipt of instructions​​.

Private Communication: Used to send private or secure messages within the feed, often to communicate specific commands or information discreetly. For example, tapping the feed to communicate privately with another character without others listening in​​.

Control Signals: Used to signal or control actions within the feed, like tapping to instruct a character to fall back or take specific actions​​.

Usage in Real Life:

Signalling Mechanisms: Within computer systems, taps can be analogous to various signalling mechanisms like inter-process communication (IPC), which includes methods such as semaphores, shared memory, and message queues.

Acknowledgments and Control Signals: In networking, control signals and acknowledgments are crucial for managing data flow and ensuring reliable communication. For example, TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) uses acknowledgments to confirm the receipt of data packets.

Network Taps: In the context of network security, a "network tap" is a device that allows access to data flowing across a network for monitoring and analysis.​​.

[Comparison]

In both the fictional world of Murderbot Diaries and real life, pings are primarily used for external signalling and connectivity checks, while taps are used for internal communication and control within the feed network

-------------------------------------------------

[Something Worth Noting]

There are some instances where taps seem more reasonable, but pings are used instead.

In Artificial Condition when Murderbot was watching Sanctuary Moon, and ART was trying to get its attention, asking to watch World Hoppers together. (see Artificial Condition, Pings, 5, 6 my AO3)

In Network Effect, when Murderbot finds that a hostile vessel (i.e. ART) was approaching and notifies the team quickly (see Network Effect, Pings, 1 my AO3)

In Network Effect, when Murderbot was locking itself up in the bathroom (see Network Effect, Pings, 11, 12 my AO3)

In Network Effect, when ART requested a private connection (see Network Effect, Pings, 13 my AO3)

In Network Effect, when Amena comes along with Murderbot to investigate Barish-Estranza shuttle, but is told to wait outside. She offers to help to which Murderbot pings acknowledgement (see Network Effect, Pings, 14 my AO3)

At the end of System Collapse when Murderbot pinged Three to ask if it wanted to listen to Holism explain planetary infrastructure (see System Collapse, Pings 15 my AO3)

Of these, 1, 3, 4 are where ART was sending pings to Murderbot. This is actually quite sweet, because we can tell that ART is being very polite to Murderbot. ART is fully capable of slamming into Murderbot’s private feed, but in all of these occasions, Murderbot has been rejecting feed communication which it reserves for friends and clients. ART is respecting this.

Instance 2 is unusual, and I am not 100% sure why Murderbot chose to use ping here. But since it was emergency, and ping is a protocol where it receives automatic response if it had been received at the other end, it was sufficient for its purposes.

When we read the context in which 5 happens we notice that Murderbot is now inside the B-E shuttle, and for security reasons, ART had cut it off from the feed network. So, Murderbot has the options of either verbally answering to Amena, or sending a ping for acknowledgement, and it chose the latter.

In instance 6, Murderbot seems to be being polite to Three who is busy (?) watching educational media. They are cordial to each other, but because Three is still not used to being a free SecUnit, Murderbot is being more careful around it.

--------------

If you are willing to be bored to death, you can see my AO3 post for the list of all the instances where pinging and tapping happen!

[kazalohiku]

i wish there was a feature in emails where you could just hit an acknowledge button. like, the conversation is basically over and i dont want to send an email that just says 'no worries!' or something, but i feel bad leaving you on a 'thanks so much!' why can i not just hit a button that means i have received and acknowledged your email, though no response is necessary.

i think i just want to be able to send pings like murderbot or tap someone's feed

[themirokai]

It gave me a 1.2 percent performance reliability drop. I tapped Pin-Lee's feed and sent to her, Make a legal thing so I don't have to do that.

I stg “make a legal thing so [we] don’t have to do that” is like 25% of what my clients ask for.

Another 40% is “make a legal thing so we CAN do that.”

Well done, Murderbot, you have successfully imitated human legal clients. Obviously Pin-Lee did not blink at this request.

[longearedhare]

Key difference between Breq and Murderbot can be summed up by how they would behave if you handed each one of them a baby. Breq would gladly take the baby and have a mock-serious discussion with it. She also has an incomprehensibly vast selection of lullabies on tap, if needed. On the other hand, Murderbot would immediately have an involuntary shutdown if someone tried to hand it a baby, and would be completely disgusted at all the bodily fluids babies produce.

[headofhelios]

& also the way art and murderbot are just two robots (ok a bot and a bot/human construct but you get what i mean) in a trenchcoat trying to pretend to be a human...

finally getting back to murderbot. they have pronouns in these books

[dinobot]

pixel and i were chatting about marathon as usual and it reminded me of my overall headcanon that in the time marathon takes place its pretty common for humans to have extensive cybernetic augmentation which is one of the reasons the battleroids were able to go under the radar, bc people often wont notice the difference between someone who seems like a soldier with more augments or prostheses than the average person and what they presume is going to be an outlandishly scary zombie but isnt really

i dont have a ton of basis except that it seemed fairly easy for durandal to give the bobs their cool/unasked for robot eyes and it was more a matter of resources than needing to invent them.

on top of that i think its interesting if martian security is more often integrated with other security tech and theyre expected to like, do their own patrols but also keep an eye on some cameras or wire taps or be more efficient at scanning those recordings than an unaugmented human. yes ive been reading a lot of murderbot. but yeah i think uesc security on mars is highly invasive and theres a lot of surveillance intended to scare potential rebels or mida sympathizers from organizing against uesc presence and it sucks. this post is all over the place bc its 4 am

[idontknowreallywhy]

Estera - Ch 15 - Wait

More blue and purple text for you as that seemed to work last time :) A dash of The Commander & The Murderbot and a sprinkle of Earth&Sky.

And yes, I laughed longer at that line than I should have.

(Previous… Prologue - Stars are Only Visible in Darkness, Estera - 1 - Colour, 2 - Dinosaur, 3 - Shoes, 4 - Thunderbird, 5 - Lesson, 6 - Safe, 7 - Gull, 8 - Deliver, 9 - Coffee, 10 - Flight, 11 - Run, 12 - Fall, 13 - Trying, 14 - Hide)

(Sofasurf’s Recrudescence which is the foundation for all of this)

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Hey, I’m up your way for a meeting next week. Maybe we could catch up? S

Oh I’m sorry, I’m taking the sleeper train to see my sister and her family.

Treviso, right? Hope you have a wonderful time!

Well remembered! I’m sorry to miss you, really bad timing.

I’m sorry!

Stop apologising! Have a Tiramisu for me 😋

Will do!

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Scott double-checked the date then closed the app and leaned on the balcony, watching the gulls land on Mateo to roost. His forehead creased with worry.

“EOS, could you look up the term dates for Estera’s school for me?”

“The current term ends in 4 weeks. Would you like the dates of the holidays and teacher training days for the next 6 years?”

“No, that’ll do. Thanks EOS.”

“I have also established that Estera Hermaszewska is marked as on sick leave and a substitute teacher has been engaged for 3 weeks starting two days ago.”

“EOS! No! You can’t just… I shouldn’t know that!”

“I thought you would want to know because you are displaying concern for her well-being. The school does not have particularly robust security on its staff records. There is a wealth of information here.”

“Stop. EOS. Please stop looking.”

“I have closed the connection. I am sorry, Scott Tracy, I did not intend to cause you distress. John will be displeased.”

Scott paused. There was a lot to unpack there, but he’d return to it later.

“I should have been more clear, it’s my fault. In future, when I ask you to find something out please would you limit your search to publicly available information unless I specifically ask otherwise?”

“Certainly. May I ask why you wish to restrict your knowledge about your friend’s welfare?”

Scott twitched slightly. “I don’t want to, exactly, but… has John discussed the concept of privacy with you?”

“He has explained we need to protect certain types of data. But I was only telling you and you are her friend.”

“Not really EOS, we barely know each other.” Another pause as he pondered how to explain. “But even if we were very good friends… part of human relationships is finding out about each other FROM each other. I should only know what she wants to tell me. To do otherwise is an invasion of privacy and would just make things… strange.”

“John knows a great deal of information about Estera Hermaszewska and they are not friends.”

Scott sighed. “John is a special case.”

“He has also informed Virgil Tracy, Tanusha Kyrano and Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward.”

“He has, has he?”

“Yes. Perhaps this is a fact he did not intend me to share with you at this time.”

“I suspect so EOS. But thank you for telling me.”

Scott headed indoors, suddenly deeply weary. Sleep was unlikely until he’d figured this one out though, so he turned his back on his own bedroom and made his way to his brother’s studio.

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His big brother had several distinct ways of knocking on his door. All were the same rhythm - Tap-te-TAP-tap - but the volume and speed would give Virgil advanced notice of what kind of mood he was in and a split second to prepare. Right now Scott was… unsure, worried about something. He made sure to add as much warmth and encouragement to his “come in Scotty” as he could.

“You always know it’s me.”

“Yep, it’s all the spy cameras I have set up… I’m kidding, Scott.” The brotherly eyebrows relaxed back into merely confused mode. “What’s up?”

“Can’t I just want to hang out?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. Scott sighed.

“I have a bit of a…. Quandary.”

He watched his brother’s face as he explained. When he wasn’t deliberately shutting himself down, or focusing on his board meeting poker face, Scott was an open book. To Virgil at least. His expression and the intonation of his voice could provide more detail than the words did.

“It sounds like you made it clear to EOS, it shouldn’t happen again?”

“But that’s not the point. I know now. She’s sick, Virg, and I’m sure it’s something to do with… well… the same as I was. Because of meeting me. What if I made her dig all that stuff up but she doesn’t have a… a you to keep her sane while she figures it out?”

Scott paced, gesticulating wildly, and Virgil caught his arm as he passed, pulling him in for a hug. His brother was trembling with pent up energy.

“Well first off, well done for not leaping in a plane and rushing to try to fix her.”

His brother let out an explosive laugh. “You know me so well.” A pause, then more quietly “I really want to. But I know that would be weird and counter-productive. I just feel so…” he sagged “Responsible. I can’t just ignore this. I can’t just abandon her!”

“I don’t think you have to.” He pulled back a little to look up into his brother’s face. “Scott, when you were struggling but not ready to talk to us, what helped?”

“Hugs.”

Virgil squeezed him a little tighter. “What else?”

Scott broke away to recommence the pacing, palming the miniature rubix cube Virgil kept handy for him on a shelf and rattling through the algorithm to solve it. Reaching the far end of the room he spun on his heel and met Virgil’s eye.

“Two things I think. Distraction. Things to help me stay grounded. And then… knowing you were there if and when I did want to talk… but you weren’t going to force me.”

Virgil nodded.

“Can you do the same for her?”

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Why are elevator jokes so good?

Hi! Err, are they?

Because they work on so many levels!

…

That was awful.

Seriously, I hear better from the 6 year olds.

Aww, that was one of my best.

That does not bode well.

I am deeply wounded. 😭

Oops 🤣

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Scott shed his overcoat and face planted on to the hotel bed, well aware of the expression the overwrought Italian designer of his suit would sport if he could see such abuse. Wrinkles be damned. The way that board meeting had gone it was a miracle he’d not wrecked this latest one with blood stains. Again.

His comm pinged with a picture message. Unusual… he swiped it open.

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Here is your Tiramisu. I’m afraid I ate it. I would apologise but you told me to stop doing that. Bad luck! Estera

Excellent work! 😋

Ah, now I’m hungry and have no dessert 😭

Oops 😂

You’re on the espressos?

You can’t drink cappuccino after 11am here. They’ll arrest you.

Good intel, I’ll bear that in mind next time I visit.

Have you been to Italy a lot?

Outside of rescues? No, actually! There’s no TI branch there and I guess we don’t get a lot of time to travel for pleasure.

Oh you should, it’s an incredible country.

Where would you recommend I start?

I’ll make you a list.

I look forward to it.

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Scott smiled to himself. Then changed into his civvies, adding a baseball cap and his signature aviators and ventured outside.

Surely somewhere in London sold tiramisu…

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On the train back. Finished my book already but still 9 hours to go!

Thunderbird One would do it in 3 minutes…

You just did the maths didn’t you?

Yep.

I’m guessing no restaurant carriage though? Whereas I am now going to go sit and enjoy the view with a coffee and some kind of delicious pastry.

… TB One does lack pastries.

I bet your brother has plenty of room for pastries in Two… 😈

Be right back.

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Scott, did Thunderbird One just fly over my train?

… maybe 😁

?????

Alan needed to get some more flight hours…

And I wanted pastries.

So we are in Paris getting takeaway.

The fuel for those things is cheap right?

Sure.

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Back at school today - the kids say hi :) I don’t know why they think I have some kind of hotline to the head of International Rescue but they won’t be dissuaded.

Hi right back atcha kids 👋

Atcha? What kind of a word is that?

An… American… one?

I don’t think it’s valid here.

Let me try again.

Good afternoon, esteemed juvenile citizens. I extend my compliments for your respective health and happiness.

You are no longer allowed to talk to the children 😏

Aw shucks 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

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Chapter 16…

[un-fixed--stars]

Thinking about how Murderbot makes a clear distinction between humans and augmented humans, and I was wondering why.

I think Murderbot makes a distinction between humans and augmented humans because the augments, specifically the one that gives internal access to the feed, fundamentally changes the way Murderbot is able to interact with that human.

When communicating in person with non-augmented humans, Murderbot has to use oral* communication, with all the complications of facial expression, tone, and body language that entails. On the other hand, when communicating with an augmented human who has that direct access to the feed like it does, Murderbot has a whole slew of new communication options, none of which involve controlling its facial expressions.

For example, it can tap someone's feed and send a file across instead of orally summarizing the file. If verbal** communication is necessary, that also seems to be possible through the feed, still without requiring Murderbot to Look At and Speak To the other person. There's also the fact that Murderbot is able to feel someone in the feed like another kind of presence, from ART looming over its metaphorical shoulder or Gurathin's distant presence in the security briefing from All Systems Red.

tl;dr : The distinction is made between humans and augmented humans because it makes a huge difference functionally, practically, in how Murderbot is able to communicate with and interact with them.

*"oral" here meaning spoken, using speech

**"verbal" here meaning using words, not necessarily spoken

[squimbusfrommypolls]

Finally chose all 64 characters but before I start making matchups can y’all tell me if any of these guys aren’t a Squimbus? I don’t know who many of them are and can’t really be sure without some others looking through the list

*Squimbus: character that never wins or makes it in poll competitions on Tumblr.com, typically from media that isn’t well known on tumblr but can just be a very obscure/unpopular character

Randy Jade (Dialtown)

The Eastridge Demon (Dreams of an Insomniac)

Sirius Gibson (Witch’s Heart)

Lightbulb (Inanimate Insanity)

Lily (Lily’s Well)

Peter (Dayshift at Freddys)

Blogbot (The Mechanisms)

Ticket Jerry (Dialtown)

Victim (Animator vs Animation)

Purple (Animator vs Minecraft)

Tomix Danao (Dragonfable)

Reinhard von Lohengramm (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)

Shinji Hibiki (UTAU)

Michelle (HaSodot (The Secrets))

Survivor (Rain World)

Asuka Toyama (Bang Dream Girls Band Party)

Goldia die Heilige (Pocket Mirror)

Gin Ibushi (Your Turn To Die: Death Game By Majority)

Fuu Hououji (Magic Knights Rayeart)

Jack Kennedy (Dayshift at Freddys)

Dj Yellow (Rhythm Heaven)

David Ward (I Am In Eskew)

Fitz Vacker (Keeper of the Lost Cities)

DAVID ST HUBBINS (This is Spinal Tap)

Joe "Mama" Besser (This is Spinal Tap)

Felix White (Henry Stickmin)

Goo (Inanimate Insanity)

Shuu Iwamine (Hatoful Boyfriend)

Cavum (Moleman arg)

Stomp Farmer (Rhythm Heaven)

Gal (Ordem Paranormal)

Sen (Shoulder a Coffin Kuro)

Lumi (Cats are Liquid)

The Shapes (Mr Maker)

Goobleck (Just Roll With It)

Biddybud (Super Mario)

Zonic the Zone Cop (Sonic Archie Comics)

WX-78 (Don’t Starve)

Daemon (Reboot!)

Ravio (Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds)

2BDamned (Madness Combat)

Denizen Hardwick (Knights of the Borrowed Dark)

Murderbot (The Murderbot Diaries)

Trouble0 (REDACTED smp)

Jeff (Clarence)

Gordon Porlock (Red Valley)

Oliver (Purrgatory)

Pleading Child (Sky: Children of Light)

SCP-6059 (SCP Foundation)

Rosemaster (Cucumber Quest)

Usaida Yoshihito (Gakkuen Babysitters)

Sydney Sargent (Camp Here and There)

Holly Short (Artemis Fowl)

Elliot Schafer (In Other Lands)

Citron (A3!)

Caspar (Midnight Burger)

Vespa Illkay (The Penumbra Podcast)

Kanatsune Ame (Entropic Float)

Alastor (Viewtiful Joe)

Alfred Montbank (Death Gate Cycle)

William Murderface (Metalocalypse)

Sawyer (Boyfriend Dungeon)

Jamiejoan (Dominion Smp)

Crawford Tillinghast (From Beyond)

[imitationgame77]

Every anxious parent of an adolescent should have SecUnit protecting them

So, on the night when Potential Target invited Amena to come back to his semi-isolated camp house with him to “meet some friends,” I decided to come along.

He led her into the darkened house, and she stumbled on a low table. She giggled and he laughed. Sounding way more intoxicated than he actually was, he said, “Wait, I got it,” and tapped the house’s feed to turn on the lights.

And I was standing in the middle of the room. He screamed. (Yes, it was hilarious.)

Wells, Martha. Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel (The Murderbot Diaries Book 5)

[windlion]

So someone posted a Murderbot/Batfam crossover and my brain just . . . went to work. Of course Bruce Wayne is from the Corporate Rim. Of course Bruce is human. But his boys. . .

Before the escape pod was towed into his bay, Bruce already knew that it contained a single ComfortUnit from his ping. That one, alone, escaped the station currently burning up in atmosphere was a mystery. Haleys was known for their work with specialized programming for constructs; why a ComfortUnit? Why this one?

What he did not expect on opening the pod doors was a tiny form curled into a ball in the safety netting. Bruce tapped the feed to be sure they were online, and a tear-stained face turned up to look at him. Dark hair, skin washed pale in the bay lights, eyes reflecting bluer than blue. Bruce asked carefully, “Is there anyone else with you?”

“Just me.”

That was the ComfortUnit.

Bruce stood frozen, staring as the child rubbed their face, attempting to straighten up. Belatedly, Bruce extended his hand to help them climb out of the netting, registering the feel of flesh and thin too light limbs. The construct awkwardly clambered out of the pod and came to rest on the deck in front of him. “Were there. . . were there any other life pods?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The ComfortUnit looked up at him, then back to the singed plating of the life pod. If they had ejected a second later, they would likely have been caught in the gravity well before Bruce could catch them with his tractor beam. If others had tried. . . there would be nothing left after the atmosphere burnt it away.

Abruptly, the ComfortUnit pinged hard across the feed, sending a string of numbers, he/him designation, the hard IP again, and a deep, desperate helplessness. HubSys, SecSys, and the shipbot all pinged back, a chorus from all over the ship greeting the child. But not the response that he wanted. Bruce could see the boy’s face fall.

“They- they got me out. Before they fell, too.” The boy’s face was haunted, one hand clenching tight while the other rested on the pod’s surface. At least enough of the pod was functioning on emergency protocols to indicate to the governor module that they were still on company property.

If Bruce didn’t know otherwise, he would think he was facing an eight or nine year old child. It absolutely turned his stomach. Someone had – someone had designed him this way. He could all too easily see the marketing. In theory it would spare “real” children, allow predators a “safe” outlet, but in reality. . . they made this person to be a target, to be locked into a life of cruelty and exploitation.

In the Corporate Rim, anything was for sale. Anything.

It didn’t matter that it was a construct who could be mentally older than himself; Bruce still found himself using a more gentle voice than he would with interrogating an adult. “Who were they?”

“Mary and John.” At his nod, the boy elaborated, “They were older models with a lot of experience, and they were helping me integrate new modules. Giving me context so things made sense.”

Two older ComfortUnits. Designated male and female. To . . . to train this one. So he was relatively young after all. Bruce couldn’t tell if that made this entire situation better or worse. He could not condone dropping the lab facility into the atmosphere, burning up the human researchers and killing countless conspirators to hide the dirty laundry, but he also could absolutely not condone this.

“Do you-- how long have you been operating?”

“Just about 5,000 hours.” The boy rocked back on his feet, swinging his hands alarmingly like a restless child. “I’ve been getting really bored with the analysis tests in the lab. They said I hadn’t passed enough to go to human trials yet.”

Bruce didn’t allow the intense relief he felt to pass his face, but from the way the boy’s eyes flickered, he’d caught some micro-expression anyway. Some days he wished his face was part of what had been replaced. With alarming forthrightness, the boy declared, “You don’t agree with my function.”

He most certainly did not miss having organic knees as he held the low crouch to be on eye-level, “You’re a child. You should be allowed to be a child.”

The boy frowned, his face admirably expressive with his bright blue eyes. “That concept only applies to humans.”

Bruce flicked one arm, displaying the grappling gun held within the left forearm. “My body is comprised of only 34% organic matter. There is arguably more humanity in you than there is in me.”

“Oh.” The boy dipped forward to look at it more closely, and Bruce obligingly held still. “That is so cool.”

“They’re augments. I didn’t choose to have the accident, to lose my limbs, to lose my parents, but I did choose how to react to it.” Bruce rotated his arm slowly so the grappling gun was stowed away, back beneath the synth-flesh coverings. “That’s what I would like to do for you. Give you a choice.”

Stubborn blue eyes locked on to his. There was skepticism in there, and a very fast-working mind. “So you’ll be my new client.”

“No. I’ll be your guardian.” Absolutely not entertaining that line of thought, though surely if any tabloids found out he was keeping a ComfortUnit, they’d be all over it. It would be easy enough to present the boy as an augmented human: they were more organic than he was. The press would buy that he'd find a child in the same kind of catastrophic situation and sympathise. “And you can decide for yourself what your function is, if you want to change.”

“Change?”

“Grow.”

That startled the boy, his eyes going wide. “You mean I could grow up?”

“I was about your size when I first received augments. I think I can make it work.” He stood up at last, obviously to his adult height, and let the boy digest that for a moment. “So, what do you think?”

“Yes!”

----

“What should I call you?”

“Uh. The researchers called me Little Dick.”

“NO.”

(And in that moment Bruce aged ten years.)

[artificial-condition]

I recently ordered The Imperial Radch trilogy. Can you tell me how you find it similar or comparable to The Murderbot Diaries?

*cracks knuckles* oh boy can I ever

Okay so first off the main similarity is having an AI protagonist. Although they differ in many ways, one way they are similar is how the protagonist has a deep understanding of systems that regular ol humans do not understand nearly as well. Such as technology and other AI systems (both novels have AI systems heavily incorporated into daily life in the form of stations, ships, etc). Both protagonists have different capabilities than humans, so they can tap into different systems in order to see things through other cameras/eyes, as well as replay things that happened in the past.

Another way they compare is that the protagonist has a very strong sense of justice and feels compelled to help humans who have been wronged. Both of them are like “why am I doing this” to a degree but help nonetheless

Another thing is they both take different approaches to gender. In Imperial Radch different societies have different gender constructs/systems, but the society the protagonist is from doesn’t differentiate genders. Everyone in the society is referred to using she/her pronouns. In murderbot, gender varies across different societies as well, and everyone uses whatever pronouns they like, displayed in their profile that others can see when meeting them, and no one has beef with it. Murderbot goes by it/its pronouns because it is not human and doesn’t want to be

Oh yeah! Another huge similarity is the setting! A lot of it is in space! On different planets! On space stations!

On to the more literary similarities. Both have themes of what it means to be a person and struggles of defining personhood, especially around AI. Both protagonists struggle to a degree with societies that do not automatically grant them personhood, which is so deeply tied to humanity and acting “human”. Both books critique/comment on different systems of society, imperial radch primarily being imperialism and murderbot primarily being capitalism.

I will say there are a lot of ways they differ. Reading imperial radch, I see how it inspired murderbot in some ways and how murderbot decided to go in complete different directions with some things. A big difference is the tone; imperial radch is much more serious than murderbot, less funny/sarcastic moments. It’s also much longer so it feels like a different type of read for sure. Although some of the content may be similar, they are both distinctly different books (and I love them both)

So glad to hear you ordered imperial radch!!! Thanks for the ask and I hope you enjoy :)

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 3

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which, well, I guess we're doing this.

A mild confrontation ensues. Karime continues with the original meeting purpose, trying to convince them to agree to let the University help them. Almost everyone's helping with that in the feed where they can. Murderbot tunes most of the discussion out, except for a channel with Three,(1) as its current complement of humans volunteer to go looking for the alternate colony site.

Mensah thinks it's not a bad idea, but Martyn points out the danger in cold contact. Kaede agrees, but the other colonists aren't refusing to answer, it's likely they don't know the main-colony situation.

While MB watches, Art is sorting through the potential location techniques, and what to send into the interference area around the terraforming engines. MB agrees to go, as if there were any other option, and it knows Ratthi must be worried, but notes that he's doing well at not showing it as he agrees to go as well. Seth and Martyn worry for Iris in particular, as their child, but give their blessing to the jaunt.

MB recalls its three drones as they head back to the shuttle. It takes an aside to note how annoyed it is that it lost all but five drones,(2) so it left one with Karime and Three, one on Art so it doesn't lose ALL its drones, and has only three left to work with, which is why the B-E crew were able to sneak up on them.

Mensah tapped my private feed and said, If you’re not all right with this, you don’t have to go. Tarik has a security specialty, or we could send Three if you think it’s ready. Tarik is a human, and a first contact with isolated colonists is not the way I want to find out that Three is not ready to interact unsupervised with humans I give a shit about. I replied, I’m fine.

Art, not understanding privacy, says it's downloading itself to an ops drone in the shuttle. Mensah thanks it, and MB thinks it's not so bad, really, because then they can watch media together if it's boring.(3)

MB notices that it has four unread messages, from Pin-Lee, Arada, Overse, and Amena. It's having a hard time pretending it's okay right now, and can't bear to look at the messages itself, so it forwards them to Mensah and asks if she can tell them all that it's fine. Mensah agrees, and she'll even add that MB needs some space right now so they don't keep at it. She wishes it luck on the trip.

A minute out, MB stops the episode it and Art were watching, a "semi-historical" about humans leaving their home system for the first time.(4) MB has been a little anxious about the trip in such a fragile shuttle over such rocky terrain. It notes that Tarik's been in the pilot's seat, even though Art has a bot pilot active, and complains that it doesn't have a shuttle flight education module so it feels helpless against potential mechanical failure.(5)

Iris and Ratthi are talking about the vegetation outside, signs that the terraforming is working, and heartbreaking in the context of the planet potentially needing to be abandoned for alien contamination. MB notes that Adamantine had used a process that wouldn't leave the planet completely trashed if the terraforming stopped, unlike Milu. GoodNightLander Independent has been trying to untrash that, though it hasn't seen any news about it since leaving on the initial survey with Arada's team.

MB wonders if the kidnapping by not-quite-Art made the news feeds since then, complains about having one more thing to worry about, redacts some further passage leading off from this.(6) It picks back up at reiterating the timeline, explaining Mensah's ship left just hours after the kidnapping, so wouldn't have any updated news. Even the B-E ship might not, depending on where they originated from and whether the news of the kidnapping was being kept secret under Preservation Station Security regulations about active investigations.

MB takes a moment to acknowledge that Preservation StatSec isn't as bad at their job as what it thought at first. Their job is just limited so they're best at a limited skillset, and they're all vulnerable to the same lack of secret-keeping as most Preservation residents.

Regardless of all that, it doesn't have any hard data on the status of the newsfeeds until the University sends their ship, and maybe not even then. It just has to account for that in its long-term threat assessment and allow its anxiety levels to increase by the… it uses a term, commensurate, then asks Art to define it.(7) Art does so, "a synonym of proportionate." Then it asks if that was relevant to the mission. MB ignores this, knowing it's not really a question.

MB discusses the differences between Art, as a fully mechanical intelligence orders of magnitude greater than MB, and itself, reliant on its human neural tissue backups if it does something silly like the events of the climax of Exit Strategy. MB wouldn't last more than a few seconds attacking Art's architecture, which is why they had to code Murderbot 2.0 as a viral attack. And, if 2 were here, MB probably wouldn't… it redacts another portion.

Still, Art's partitions are separated by their functions. The drone piece isn't actively protecting Art's humans, so it's less likely to murder first and ask questions later if at all.(8) The main Art hands over the piloting controls to Tarik, and tells MB to take care of the humans and itself, just before MB's sense of the feed and the comms fades out slowly to the terraforming engines' disruption field. Threat assessment spikes, but draws back a little. It's expected, but losing contact is never without consequences.(9)

Fortunately, the shuttle's local feed is fine, and Art's drone partition is present, but much smaller without a tether to its main consciousness. It tells team the process is "unnecessarily dramatic." Iris says it's the one that creates the processes. Ratthi asks if it's weird that Art can partition itself and communicate like this. Tarik says the whole job's weird. Art-drone says Art's tolerance for its humans' shenanigans is also weird, and tells Iris to put on her seatbelt, since Art-drone is still part Art, even in the third-person.

As they get close to the terraforming engines, MB can pick up Art's pathfinder drones as pings, but all scans are still broken. Art-drone commands the pathfinders to fall in and follow, since they can't map anyway. They come up on the engines, but on visual scans, still can't find any indication of an air bubble for a colony.

The humans discuss whether the cave system theory might have been right. Iris hopes the splinter group is alright, because it might help the colonists come together toward evacuation if they can understand what sundered them. Tarik says Iris can't do therapy on an entire colony. Ratthi starts wondering about a pre-CR site… but then waves off the idea, literally, and says it's more likely they're living in something Adamantine-era from the original terraforming crew.

Tarik asks Art-drone if the pathfinders were miraculously able to get any scans, but it dismisses miracles as unlikely, and displays all the information they have, which isn't much. They can assume one of a few things are true: either the colonists meant for the engines to cover their power output to hide, they put the site where they wanted it and didn't consider the engine effect, they're all dead and there's no signal to detect, or they're deliberately ignoring the team to stay concealed.

Ratthi frowned at the big patchy blanks in the incoming survey data. “We have no idea how much they know about what happened in the main colony area, either. They could be ignoring us because they’re too afraid to answer.” ART-drone said, That would demonstrate a more developed sense of survival than we have previously encountered here.(10)

Iris records a brief explanation of who's here and their purpose, to broadcast and hopefully encourage contact. MB and Art-drone start running algorithms on the visual data they have, trying to find indications of settlement. Tarik asks if MB wants to weigh in. Ratthi glances at it, and obviously sees something about its mannerisms tells him something, because he says it's busy with something.

Three seconds later, it finds a potential landing site northwest of the engines. When it shares it, all the humans acknowledge the find, and MB gets as uncomfortable with the attention as it does at being ignored.(11) It doesn't acknowledge any of them, and Ratthi asks how it's doing. MB tells him it's fine.

Tarik and Iris discuss the lack of roads from the landing site, and what it might mean with regard to weather patterns. Tarik's face does some weird stuff, and MB watches him closely, fascinated to see a human with as much trouble hiding his emotions on his face as MB feels it has. Tarik asks why there's a drone in his face, and Ratthi suggests he ignore it, without explaining.(12)

Iris wants to get on the ground and start looking nearby, but Art-drone says the flat area may be an underground building's roof.(13) Tarik says they can land somewhere nearby that looks stable. MB sends an autoplay video to Ratthi,(14) who's so startled he exclaims a "What?" aloud before he grasps what it wants him to say. He tells Iris and Tarik, briefly, about the ground-burrowing creatures that came up under the hoppers in All Systems Red. Iris acknowledges it, in a way MB interprets as wanting Ratthi and Tarik both to shut up while she thinks. She suggests a ground sensor might work, close enough to the surface.

MB, seeing Ratthi and Tarik both opening their mouths to volunteer, cuts them off to say it'll go. Before they can protest, it's unclipped its seatbelt and crossed the compartment, picking up the ground sensor from Iris as it goes. Tarik is alarmed, they're still twenty meters up, and Art-drone threatens MB in the private feed between them. MB sends them all some footage from a documentary it watched with Pin-Lee, about a failed survey, where an underground creature took out an aircraft from forty meters up.

Tarik yells and cusses, but Ratthi says he understands MB's concern, but it's not jumping out at this height. Iris yells over everyone to say there's a soft-drop pack in the emergency locker. MB grabs one and says it knew that, even though it did not, and swears it would have been fine anyway.

MB suits up with an air mask and all, and Ratthi tells it to be careful. MB reminds him privately that it has guns in its arms. In its own thoughts, it thinks that's the whole point of its existence.(15) It also has the projectile weapon, it may not be any use against an ag-bot, but if there are massive alien contaminated bots here... let's not think about that too hard.

While Ratthi tries to explain to a curious Iris why MB is so worried about humans getting eaten, MB leans out the hatch for a look, then drops. In initial observation, the only thing it really notices is that some mounds close to the engines look human-made rather than natural. Still, those are so close to the engines, it's unlikely anyone's stupid enough to live under them.(16)

Then again, Corian told Karime that the splinter group had some members of the original terraforming crew. They would be in a position to know if they found a pre-CR installation. Adamantine tended toward permanent structures that were easy to repurpose as the colony grew, at the landing site, so it's unlikely they built anything up here or it would be visible and further away from the engines. Well, unless they had advance warning of the hostile takeover and secret directives to find a new secret site near the engines for safekeeping.

Art-drone tells MB it's had a 0.05% performance reliability spike, and MB tells the reader that Art's monitoring it because of a redacted story it doesn't want to talk about. Still, it tells Art-drone that it's had an idea, and sends it the loose details it's saved for later analysis. Art-drone humours MB but doesn't seem convinced.

The ground sensor does, in fact, work on the ground, and it shows a solid planet beneath MB's feet, but that the landing pad is the same material as Adamantine used at the other colony sites. Art-drone says there was only a 22% chance they built this close to the engines, but MB says they might have been stupid enough to do it anyway, even if they couldn't get safety bonded for it. It's not even sure how common safety bonds would have been forty years ago, though it thinks Art could probably dredge up some data with the right query to its database.

Tarik asks when they'll get a report, and MB watches through Drone 3 as Ratthi's face does "a thing" and he says when MB has something worth reporting. Iris teases Tarik about micromanaging, and Art-drone asks if Tarik is critiquing its management. MB notes to the reader that Tarik's only been with Art's team for about a year, so everyone fucks with him constantly as The New Guy.(17) It also thinks how everybody razzing Tarik means they haven't noticed that MB is just standing there uselessly… well, except Art-drone, and probably Ratthi because he's not angry at Tarik for the prodding, and Iris is pretty observant…

Get it together, Murderbot.

MB sends the ground sensor's report back to the team, and tries to decide what to do next. There's no sign of a road. The splinter colony wasn't hiding when they left, the other colonists knew approximately where they were going. They must have built a road, and some sign of it must be here somewhere.

MB starts moving the ground sensor around. Ratthi asks if they can come help, probably assuming MB still doesn't know what it's doing, but now it actually does, and declines assistance. Finally, under the surface at one edge of the pad, it finds metallic remains. A powered rail is still there, so floating equipment could be attached and moved along it.

Up in the shuttle, the humans were excited, thinking we could follow it all the way to the hidden habitat. Then with the ground sensor, I followed it for ten meters before it hit the rim of a buried hatchway.(18)

=====

(1) Emotional support connection, but is it for Three's benefit, Murderbot's need for control, or both? (2) During the events of Network Effect, though I can't be sure about the count on the drones at the end without going back and double checking and I'm more concerned with making forward progress on this one. (3) What gives you the impression that anything about this mission is going to be boring? (4) I have zero evidence for this except vibes, but I feel like this could be a reference to The Expanse, especially given the "throwing asteroids at planets" bit. (5) I wonder why, then, it was so comfortable back in All Systems Red, book 1, with being copilot with Mensah. It didn't comment that it was useless for it to be in the seat of the big hopper then. It's entirely possible that this shuttle requires a different education than the hoppers rented by the company it used to belong to, but it's a nitpick my brain can't help but notice. (6) The redactions are driving me insane. Good job, Martha Wells. (7) My heart, MY HEART! When was the last time MB actually, politely, asked anyone to help it, even in such a small way? I'm not fully in tears or anything, but I am making a goober face at my laptop screen. (8) I know we've kind of seen what happens when Art's humans are threatened, but I wonder if this is a look forward (setup/foreshadowing) or a look backward at what we've seen it do before, or both I suppose. (For once in this journey, I legitimately do not know, and I'm not averse to spoilers but I'm not looking this one up, either.) (9) See, that's DEFINITELY setting up for consequences. As if we needed to know something bad is going to happen. This is a Murderbot book with 80% remaining. (10) Burn cream on aisle 7, please? (11) Such a mood. Though, Ratthi's party sparkler emoji is hilarious to me, as someone who uses the tada emoji to indicate celebration for my friends. (12) I lost the post, but I saw someone put it as something like, Ratthi is so accustomed to the panopticon of Murderbot's surveillance state, he doesn't even notice it anymore. (13) I am obviously not an expert in any of the related fields to this, but I'm curious why just that one area would be cleared like that if it's the roof of this underground habitat. Like, I get that it makes it potentially unstable, if the rock shelf is thinner there. But, if this one is visible, shouldn't you see others? (14) Weaponized autoplay, I love it. (15) Well… that's the whole reason the people who came up with SecUnits created you. It's not your whole purpose for existing anymore. I hope you know that, fictional character I can't actually talk to but in whose emotional wellbeing I am deeply invested. (16) That feels like more setup. (17) Aww, no, don't give me more reasons to like, feel for the guy. (As if I need any more reason to trust a character than "Art accepts him and Murderbot doesn't want to throw him out the airlock".) (18) Nearly ther-- wait, that's all we get today?!