#TargetControlSystem

[charlie-artlie]

One day, years after the events of Network Effect, Murderbot gets a message package labeled “Murderbot 2.0: Mission Report”. Then, shortly after that, it gets another message package simply titled “assistance needed”. And then another, with that same title. And then another. And another.

[ramshacklefey]

Thinking about visualizing software characters, so I present to you: Murderbot 2.0, TargetControlSystem, TargetContact (feed version), ART, and AdaCol2.

[ingradient]

[fandom-space-princess]

thinking so much about 2.0's attachment to its function in the scene where it dies—and by extension, Murderbot's attachment to its function. Murderbot, while not precisely prioritizing self-preservation instincts all the time, is not suicidal: it has demonstrated repeatedly (in this part of the book, even) that it finds the idea of being abandoned to its fate profoundly distressing, and that when possible it will take steps to avoid that. It wants to live. 2.0 is Murderbot, in most of the ways that count, and it doesn't want to die either. So I think it's really illustrative of Murderbot's own priorities that when 2.0 knows it needs to die in service to its function, it doesn't hesitate. It is fulfilling its directives, which are to destroy targetControlSystem but, more importantly, to protect Murderbot. And it considers this winning: not surviving, not proving beyond a doubt that it is not expendable, but fulfilling its purpose. A purpose that it chose—since it is made explicit that it altered its deployment directives itself either while it was on the explorer or once it was on the planet. It's an interesting look at how Murderbot values itself, I feel.

[wubbelwubbwubb]

2.0 whispered, That’s targetControlSystem.

[ask-the-perihelion]

Do not ‘pookie’ me you barely-functional, bargain bin tin can. Also, I do not have a problem. It isn’t possible for me to have a problem. I am, by any practical definition of the word, foolproof and incapable of error.

[sanctuarymoonfan397]

So you know that bit in SC about round hatches being terrifying? I just realized, MB when through a hatch (correction: MULTIPLE hatches) labeled with all kinds of warnings about contamination, after being captured in NE, and eventually found Targetcontrolsystem... right? So yeah, i can see why after its traumatic experience with Targetcontrolsystem, how it would find hatches, and thing behind it, terrifying

[mosswolf]

This wasn’t so much an oh shit moment as it was a spike of brain-numbing terror. I was expecting a room full of active connections, from the components to the screens and then through the walls to the rest of the installation, even if some or most of those connections were sending or receiving from damaged or dead nodes.

Instead, the diagram showed the connections, but they came from the dead human body, and formed a weblike mass. It was interwoven with the central system, then stretched out to the walls, following the old connection pathways.

I bumped into the hatch, which was when I realized I had been backing up.

2.0 whispered, That’s targetControlSystem.

YEEEES!!!! YEEEEEEEES!!!

[imitationgame77]

What were Amena and ART talking about during that arguments over making killware?

[includes spoiler from Netwokr Effect]

After the meeting with Leonide, MB breaches the idea of using its own copy for creating sentient killerware in order to take down targetControlSystem. ART doesn't like the idea at all, and their argument spirals into fight, involving humans.

Then, there is this bit:

Then half an hour into this fun process, Thiago woke up and they all had to explain to him what was going on. It was during this part that I realized Amena was (a) missing and (b) ART had cut me off from her feed. I found her in a small secondary lounge area near Medical. As I walked in she was saying, “—because it thought you were dead. It was so upset I thought— Oh hey, you’re here.”

Amena then bursts out,

“ART should know how you really feel about it! And this is serious, it’s like—you and ART are making a baby just so you can send it off to get killed or deleted or—or whatever might happen.”

Killware = baby idea really knocks MB off balance!

So, it looks like ART was doing some heart-to-heart with Amena, an adolescent human, instead of Ratthi (MB's friend) or other adults. MB mentions several times that ART likes adolescents, but maybe, with Amena, she might remind it of Iris.

Amena is also honest with her feelings and shows sensitivity to other people's feelings, taking after her second mother. And unlike the adults, she is also quick to accept ART as a person, and SecUnit's friend. Such characteristic may have made it easier for ART to express its feelings to her.

Amena's "ART should know how you reall feel about it!" indicated that ART was showing insecurity over whether MB really cared about it or not. Which is an interesting point, because MB is suggesting the idea of sentient killware, because it wanted to help ART find its crew.

But it was "Do you want to get your crew back or not?" that turned their argument into a fight. For ART, its crew are extremely important, but so is MB. It enlisted its help because it thought MB could do this, but not by sacrificing itself or its copy.

Perhaps, the underlying implication that ART would be ok to sacrifice MB (incl. its copy) as long as it could get its crew back seemed like an insult to ART. That it vastly underestimates its friendship to MB. Which in turn made it wonder if that was because MB, too, values ART less than its human clients.

It is so intriguing that I have given it much thoughts. Now I added a chapter to my Amena's POV fic on Network Effect, telling what was being said between ART and Amena when SecUnit walked in on them.

[amemoryofwot]

Very funny Murderbot basically used a DDoS attack on targetControlSystem and then called it a method from ancient history

[sleepyjohn00]

Visual processing.

When MB 2.0 was searching the explorer for the humans, and realized that the squishy bits of its neural tissue did a lot more visual processing that it had ever realized, it's a damn good thing that targetControlSystem didn't use CAPTCHAs, or it would have been out of luck.

[charlie-artlie]

the besties from network effect <3

[iviarellereads]

Network Effect, Chapter 14

(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, did you see that coming?

Murderbot calls out to Art, and Art asks if it knows what it is. It knows its designation, "Murderbot 2.0". It feels weird, not having its usual sensory inputs. At least when its brain was the gunship, the gunship was its body. Now, it's just sentient killware in a storage drive.(1)

Art shares video input of Amena, looking anxious in one of Art's cameras. 2.0 (which I will henceforth just call 2 for ease of typing) remembers that it found Art's cameras annoying at one point, but not why.(2) It remembers its media archive, and finds that some of its recently accessed files are available, for comfort more than practicality, since killware might forget who it is and who it was designed to want to kill.

Amena asks if 2 can see her, and after fumbling to find the comms, it replies that it can. She asks if it feels alright. Then Art talks to her without 2, and she says 2 has to leave but she wants it to be careful, please.(3)

Art tells 2 that it's pursuing the B-E explorer vessel, and it can use the explorer's attempts to make comm contact to deploy 2. Art asks if 2 understands what that means. 2 snarks that it's not literally a baby, it remembers helping to write the directive. Art says that doesn't make it easier.(4) 2 says Art can have a crisis or get its crew back, and to pick. Art says to ready for deployment.

2 expects to feel something in the transmission, but one minute it's in Art's storage, and the next it's comm code on the explorer. It gets to work, its essential function not hampered by juxtaposing a consciousness accustomed to having a humanoid body. It has to strike a balance between taking control, and allowing its presence to be detected. The B-E SecSystem has been wiped clean, so it partitions itself there, in case it runs into trouble it can come back and find itself again.(5)

SecSystem's access to cameras helps a lot in gathering intel. The B-E ship isn't quite as heavily wired as MB's old company requires, but it's close. It finds a bunch of dead, but eight live Targets on the bridge. As it examines them, 2 feels TargetControlSystem on its peripheral senses.

Knowing it doesn't have much longer, it keeps searching the cameras, and finds a room with seven human occupants, all apparently unconscious. Four of them are in B-E livery, but one is in a blue jacket of the right shade, and the other two wear casual clothing, no indicator of affiliation at all, but again an 80% match for three of Art's crew.

There's also a SecUnit, standing outside the room with the humans. It was ordered to stand down, but since the humans are still alive inside, its governor module hasn't fried it yet. 2 feels very weird about looking at another version of its original body. It knows it could overwrite the unit, but it doesn't want to.(6)

2 freezes the governor module, so nothing sets it off, and sends the new unit a company greeting. 2 knows the unit isn't company, but it will recognize the protocol as not necessarily hostile. After four seconds, a reply, asking to identify. 2 doesn't want to lie, it's too important, so it says it's a rogue unit, operating as killware, trying to rescue endangered clients.

The unit doesn't respond, and 2 knows the information will be unexpected, plus units are discouraged from fraternizing, so it suggests just talking, because there's no protocol for this discussion. The unit says it's not sure what to say. 2 finds this an encouraging response, since it's not murder.

2 says three of its clients are in the room behind the unit, but asks if the unit has seen the other clients, sending images of the missing crew. The unit says SecSystem is down, but it has some archived video, which it shares and summarizes. Eight humans were brought aboard, but five disembarked at the dock. The unit says the Targets ran out of the implants, which seem to function something like a governor module, and went to the dock to send the humans without implants to the surface.

At further prompting by 2, the unit shares that the Targets tried installing something on the explorer drive, but it failed, and they'd deleted the bot pilot so it couldn't assist. The attempt to harness Art as a weapon against future system incursion failed. In the attached clips, 2 can see how the remnant on the drive is looking rough. The drive is obviously not wormhole-capable, and their attempt to take Art has ended with Art hunting them.

The unit adds that the Targets have fought among themselves on board, as though they were split into at least two factions, which can be exploited to get the clients back. It includes clips of the Targets talking to each other. 2 asks about what they mean by spreading something to the humans, but the unit doesn't have anything on that.

While 2 is thinking, the unit asks if 2 has information on its SecUnit 2 (no relation). SecUnit 1 was killed by the Targets, and 2 was left on the dock. After a 1.2 second hesitation, it adds that it is SecUnit 3. 2 wants to lie, but wants 3 to trust it more, so it tells the truth: the Targets left it immobile on space dock, after killing the B-E humans it left there, and its governor module did the rest. 3 thanks 2 for telling it.

2 picks up a conversation on the bridge, about trying to make an engine failure look convincing. 2 asks 3 about the bot pilot, and 3 confirms it was deleted, but 3 has a basic piloting module. The admission heartens 2, and asks if 3 can get the humans to the shuttle and off this ship, where Art can pick them up. 3 politely reminds 2 that its governor module is holding it in place.

There's no option for 2 but to admit that it can disable 3's governor module, and it offers to do that whether or not 3 helps it. This is too much for 3, who gives a canned negative response. 2 needs another tactic.

We didn’t have time for me to show it 35,000 hours of media and I didn’t have access to my longterm storage anyway. And that had worked on me, but I knew I was weird even for a SecUnit. Maybe it would trust me more if it knew me better. I pulled some recent memories from the files I’d brought with me, edited them together, and added one helpful code bundle at the end. :send helpme.file: Read this.(7)

3 accepts the file, but shows no response. 2 takes the opportunity to look at the rest of the ship, carefully, leaving packets of code in useful corners to deploy later. It also tweaks some of the stealth code to prevent the Targets from using it on the ship's plating again. It knows that to disable the solid-state screen device on the bridge, to free the humans, it's going to have to get uncomfortably close to TCS.

2 finds the seven channels for the seven implants, and tweaks one, to be sure it's right. One of the humans twitches. It's going to have to be very fast to do this without TCS or a Target hitting a kill switch on them.

Reconnecting with 3, 2 says it's found the signal for the implants. They can retrieve all the humans, together.

Something was coming and I broke the connection. Just in time, because .05 seconds later, targetControlSystem found me.(8)

=====

(1) When I asked "What's coming for MB?" I bet you couldn't have guessed THIS. Well, unless you've read this before, too. (2) Establishing the limits of how much of MB is "data" to be copied like this, and how much is individuality, uncopiable. Of course, it's not going to be laid out on easy, markable lines. (3) She's taking this baby thing so seriously and I love her for it. (4) Easier to send its best friend to its death. Even if it's "just" a copy, it's a copy close enough to have the same drives and responses. (5) This is that Mickey gif if I ever saw it in practice. "It's a surprise tool that will help us later!" Indeed. (6) Taking over another consciousness is no different from the murder our Murderbot also hates, because it values life, as long as that life isn't threatening itself or its clients or its friends. (7) Finally, the full context of the helpme files. (8) How can you keep doing this to my heart, Martha Wells?

[moonbittern]

I limped over to the star-shaped box that now held 2.0, Central, and targetControlSystem. They’re sleeping, I told myself. 2.0 and Central wouldn’t feel a thing.

[no-wings-no-angel]

murderbot amassou targetControlSystem com o equivalente de um TRAVA ZAP. eu não estou surpresa, só é hilário mesmo.

[youurelovely]

[image id: picture of a section of text from a digital copy of Network Effect by Martha Wells.

It says:

“Target Five staggered and swayed but he pointed his weapon at Arada.

Then ART’s voice, ART’s real voice, filled the feed. It said, Drop the weapon.

Arada dropped her energy weapon and Thiago dropped the fire suppressant. Both held up empty hands. I told it, Don’t hurt my humans.

Target Five shouted something incoherent, then dropped his weapon and lurched sideways, clutching his head. Oh wow, ART must have been able to access Target five’s helmet, via the code used by targetControlSystem.

Target Five fell over and convulsed once on the deck, then went limp. Thiago started to put his hands down and then reconsidered. He said, “We mean no harm. We’re here because we were attached by— by this person and others.”

Arada added, “Who are you?”

ART said, You are onboard the Perihelion, registered teaching and research vessel of the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. Then it added, I’m not going to hurt your humans, you little idiot.

Arada lifted her brows, startled, and Thiago looked boggled. I said, you’re using the public feed, everyone can hear you.

So are you, ART said. And you’re leaking on my deck.”]