#iris is art's ratthi

[murderbot-moodboard]

^ Ratthi to Murderbot and Iris to ART during System Collapse

hey. don't cry. I went to Mad At You island and none of your friends were there :)

[hellofriendhawke]

I wanted to draw this:

[poemsofthemachine]

Murderbot Textposts

[hauntinghyrule]

What Murderbot said: "I've realized that Iris is ART's Ratthi."

What Murderbot probably meant: "Iris is ART's person-who-is-ready-to-loudly-defend-it-at-a-moment's-notice."

What I heard: "Ratthi is something like a brother to me."

[whitedatura]

I love how Murderbot is leaving a trail dotted with hacked bots. Desperately hoping for this to be a plot point in the future; ART and Murderbot and their growing pack of "you picked free will, now what?" maybe-allies.

[homosekularnost]

arts crew reacts to tarik/ratthi (audio)

[thereadingmoon]

spoilers for system collapse, chapter 8

I just KNOW iris, ratthi, and tarik had war flashbacks to high school/uni as they worked their asses off on that last-minute presentation

[asterlark]

just finished system collapse and i literally almost CRIED reading the last two paragraphs, not because anything bad or upsetting happened, but simply from the power of murderbot & ART's friendship. what the fuck!!!!!!

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 6

(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 57 sources of anxiety sounds low, actually.

The team is not happy. Iris records another briefing, even though it's early for a check-in, and Murderbot hopes that this and the other pathfinder return soon with some insight from the rest of the team, but only counts on it as a way to let them know what happened if the B-Es attack them. Threat assessment puts the chance of a B-E attack low, but mostly because these three and MB aren't much of a threat to at-least-5 and another SecUnit.

And oh, that SecUnit is causing some discussions among the team. MB has to explain that it can't just go around freeing every SecUnit willy nilly, and besides that, a freed SecUnit doesn't instantly become trustworthy. A freed unit might need to be killed anyway, if it goes rogue and attacks the humans. Tarik seems to understand. Ratthi definitely doesn't, but acknowledges that MB is the expert on the matter, and he doesn't want to press it into something it doesn't think is safe. MB appreciates that about Ratthi.

After all that, MB and AC2 arrange a secure connection for Iris and Trinh, the primary "operator" for AC2. Trinh is a little unnerved at a second group of strangers making contact so soon after B-E. MB figures it'd be pretty freaked out at that, too. Iris explains the situation, and Trinh observes that she's saying the same thing B-E did: that she's here to help. MB groans mentally that the colonists have no reason to trust them.(1)

Tarik, Ratthi, and Art-drone strategize on the shuttle, and a lot of time is spent on the potential arguments to be made, and what the colonists might and are likely to know from their sporadic contact and, potentially, spying via AC2's connection to AC1.

On the plus side, AC2 gave MB the location of the B-E shuttle, and the best route to it without alerting them. So, it takes the opportunity to go scout it out. MB grumbles about the lack of cameras in the last section of the path AC2 directs it to, as well as none outside. Preparedness is everything, dangit!(2) Meanwhile, Art-drone has taken a defensive position just inside the hangar.

MB takes some comfort that the colonists might not trust them, but AC2 trusts it. Mostly, computer systems trust easily if you keep things simple and don't try to provoke their boundaries. AC2 wants to protect its humans, and MB has so far showed no sign of wanting to harm them.

So, it provides the team with the video feed where the B-Es are still talking to most of the humans. There's no audio, but Art-drone is interpreting from mouth and facial movements, and they probably understand more than the B-Es do since Thiago's translation module is "clearly better". AC2 vouching for MB won't win over any humans, though. Sometimes not even solid evidence can convince them.

AC2 asks MB why the B-E SecUnit refused a connection request. MB thinks that's a good thing, since normal SecUnits can't hack, only CombatUnits.(3) MB is pretty sure this one's a normal SecUnit, since its armour is very similar to Three's. So, it has to explain to AC2 that it's under the control of a governor module. It doesn't have an answer for AC2's subsequent why (is this allowed)?

By now, MB has made it to the other hangar, where the B-Es landed. It wonders how the B-Es knew to look here particularly. Earlier, Iris asked Art-drone if the B-Es could have followed them in, but Art-drone came to the conclusion that they arrived at least a day earlier, from some gap in Art-prime's pathfinder scanning. Art-drone is miffed enough that it expects Art-prime will be furious.

Still, back in the present, MB realizes it's drifted off again, and Ratthi brings it back to task by noticing a second door. AC2 sends MB a rough map of the installation, and MB shares it with the humans. With nothing better to do, MB decides to stand there and hang out on purpose.

The wind outside gets stronger, screaming through the hangar's crevices. Art-drone says pathfinders confirm the weather is getting worse and it may lose contact with them. AC2 confirms, that matches its weather station data.

MB pulls up some Sanctuary Moon, not wanting to distract Art-drone with something new. After a couple of minutes, AC2 asks what MB is doing. MB explains watching media, and AC2 offers its entertainment partition, and MB has hit a goldmine, though some of the titles don't match words in its language modules. When Art-drone notices, it says these are pre-CR media.

The scene flips(4) over to the now-unredacted incident again, and MB says it's fairly sure the corpse never chewed on its leg, but it's even more sure it saw that happen to a human at some point on a survey mission. It told Art that it (MB) had fucked everything up and that Art and its humans shouldn't want it to do security for them anymore. Art asks why, and MB says something is broken inside it.

Art points out that its wormhole drive is broken. MB says that's fixable, and knows it was a mistake to say so since it really doesn't know all of what happened to Art from Art's point of view, but continues that its flaw is in its organic neural tissue. Art points out that this is how the humans diagnosed it so quickly, and asks if they're disposable when it happens to them. MB grumbles that that's what corporations say. Art says it's not a corpo.

MB tells Art to stop, that this isn't it talking, just its… Art finishes the thought MB trails out of: its certification in trauma protocol, which is obviously useless in this situation. MB says it's for humans, and Art points out that this affects MB's human bits. MB says it's not talking to Art anymore.(5)

The first thought MB has is that it should trade all its media for all AC2's. The second is that its humans aren't going to be staying much longer, whether they go with Art or B-E. At least the situation sucking so bad is a great distraction for how much MB feels it sucks, it thinks, just before realizing it missed something in its distraction.

Trinh invites the team to spend the night in the installation, since the weather is worsening. Iris asks MB if they should, and despite the threat of the B-Es, MB agrees. Art-drone thanks it, and MB knows it's not the only one that was imagining the other SecUnit sneaking up on the shuttle.

Trinh sends them directions, which they don't need with AC2's map, but that put them at the opposite end from the accommodations the B-Es were given. It's a nice gesture, even if it's only a twenty minute walk apart.(6) MB sneaks back through the back corridors to meet up with the others. MB does its best to act like the others, even to folding its hood and helmet back. It's not sure what AC2 has told the colonists about it, and it doesn't want to ask, in case it hadn't told them about MB and this causes it to. MB knows it can't stay a secret, but it wants less interaction with them if possible.

Flash to a clip of it telling Mensah it doesn't know what's wrong with itself, and Mensah saying she thinks it knows, and just doesn't want to talk about it yet.(7)

In the present and in the team feed, to prevent eavesdropping by B-E, Iris says so far, Trinh has rejected B-E's requests to speak to the whole colony. They're only allowing them the smaller group. Ratthi worries what kind of employment pitch they might make, and Tarik says they'll be real good at dressing it up, and this group might be more vulnerable to their manipulation.

Iris says the group seems pretty independent, she thinks the chance of them falling for it is low, but it might not even be in their best interest to leave with the others. If they can forge the charter right, they'd have the right to choose to stay or go as they please. Ratthi adds that it would be even easier if the University comes to study the contamination, offering a means of transport out later as needed. Tarik is about as optimistic about this as MB, which is to say, not very.

MB notices that they all look really tired, and kicks itself as it asks Art-drone how long it's been since they slept. It replies that they were supposed to take naps on the flight in, but nobody could rest. MB feels like it fucked up again, but Art-drone offers that they both fucked this one up.

AC2 notifies them that there's a human approaching, as they near their assigned quarters. Ratthi asks in the team feed if this is a sign of trust, on the system's part. Iris asks Art-drone if that's possible, and it reminds her that they've discussed anthropomorphizing machine intelligence before. Ratthi asks what Art-drone considers human characteristics in this way, and Tarik begs them not to start. There's some lighthearted teasing of Tarik by Art, and Iris laughingly says she's sorry she asked.

The human doesn't have a feed ID, but AC2 supplies a name of Lucia and he/him pronouns when MB asks, since it knows the humans will want to know. Iris thanks him for inviting them in, and he nervously says she's welcome and walks them to the rooms, showing them the facilities. Iris tries to initiate three different conversations, to no avail. The team all worries B-E poisoned the well already.

Iris goes to lay on one of the beds in the other room, while Ratthi and Tarik stay in the first room to talk about what's going on between them. MB is stuck in the doorway between the rooms, monitoring everything in case of attacks. It recalls overhearing a heated discussion on Art after the incident, and learning that it was Ratthi and Tarik having a "sexual discussion". Apparently, this felt like the right time to talk again. MB backburners their audio except for a keyword filter in case they yell for help, plays a nice nothing loop of sound, and stares at the wall.(8)

The humans do, eventually, manage to get some sleep. Art-drone gets MB to watch an episode of World Hoppers. MB thinks about how it has fifty seven unique causes of concern or anxiety, and it can do nothing about any of them. That goes up to fifty eight when Trinh calls to ask for an in-person meeting with them and B-E.

=====

(1) Trust the process. (2) There are reasonable limits, it's true. Being prepared beyond a certain point is just feeding your own paranoia. Just look at all the right-wing "preppers" who keep expecting the apocalypse. But, a certain amount of preparation and expecting the worst can keep you safe in an emergency. Never installing cameras in a whole section of your installation or at the exits is absolutely an error in judgement on some level. (3) I'm sure it means hack something this complex, but… Murderbot, you hack literally all the time. Are you secretly a CombatUnit? (4) It's not lost on me that, now that we know what the redacted incident was, it feels like more pre-CR talk means more flashback and MB being more distracted in the present. (5) If that lasted 5 minutes I'll do something improbable. (6) I dunno, see, this is one of those things where MB is programmed to go past what I think are reasonably pessimistic expectations of danger. It's understandable, this is what it was literally built for, but situationally speaking, I think it's a bit excessive. Nobody wants to make a bad impression on the colonists, if nothing else. (7) Why this conversation? Why now? Why here, right after being worried about the colonists figuring out what it is? (8) Personally, I want all the juicy details, but I can't blame MB for its lack of interest.

[elkian]

System Collapse Update (spoilers natch)

Murderbot, fielding 18 life-ruining personal issues at the same time: okay FINE I will admit that friendship has some applicable real-life benefits. At least Tarik is a totally normal person who hates me like he should

Tarik: *throws himself under the bus without hesitation after being in the same space as Murderbot for like 2 days*

Murderbot: come ON

The repeated core narratives of the Murderbot series are so fucking funny if you line them up btw

PresAux team: friendship? :) Murderbot: what the fuck *flees*

ART: friend ship? :) Murderbot: what the fuck

Miki: friendship? :) Murderbot: no wtf why does this keep happening Unlovable I’m Unlovable!!!!!

PresAux humans: Murderbot u fucked up Murderbot: oh shit I CARE

(Interlude where humans think about how much they love their friend the Murderbot)

Targets: ahaha we killed the Friend Ship! Murderbot: Murderbot: *rampage* Targets: o SHIT

Murderbot: Indah thinks I suck, joke’s on her because I do but also I’m great. Indah: I don’t think you suck I think you’re a valuable member of this team. Murderbot: whAT

[berenshand]

one of my favourite little things about the murderbot diaries is how present all secunit's friends are even if they're not actually physically present. it doesn't do the annoying thing where it jumps through hoops to bring back characters that aren't really relevant to the narrative but it also doesn't do the other annoying thing where it pretends they never existed either. like secunit talks about art and mensah all the time even when art or mensah aren't in the book. it's clear how bharadwaj has impacted its personal growth even when she's literally on another planet. it complains about gurathin and pin-lee when they're not there. it's still sad about miki and don abene and it mentions tapan and maro and rami even though it only knew them for a few days (because when you're new at being a person every interaction with other people is important even if it's short). iris reminds it of mensah. iris also reminds it of ratthi. its hair is fluffy bc it let amena play hairdresser off-screen and it messages her so she knows it's okay. it doesn't have to worry about protecting volescu anymore because volescu retired thank goodness. it's still using thiago's language module. etc etc etc

it's such good writing because it's such a little thing that gives the characterization and relationships greater depth and also reinforces the running theme of friendship in the series and then also subtly gives this sense of 'the people you love are a part of you/your story' and also reinforces secunit's role as a storyteller because it's constantly telling little stories about all its friends.

[singlecrow]

I Have Reread Seven Murderbot Books In A Small Number Of Days, and Am Now Completely Insane About The Following Non-Exhaustive List Of Things (in no order)--

let's start with the fact the first book is almost ENTIRELY a letter from Murderbot to Mensah. it's 40,000 words. Murderbot, you are an emotionless robot for SURE.

Pin-Lee. Just in general. no, also, the main character of Sanctuary Moon is also a lawyer with increasingly bizarre problems. hello. (why did they take a LAWYER on a planetary survey??)

Amena tells ART and Murderbot, in case they didn't know, that they're having a baby. They didn't know.

AMENA. sixteen years old and whiny teenager who isn't like her annoying genius family who don't understand her NO ONE UNDERSTANDS. spends rest of book being brave and competent and mighty. whatever.

Amena's little sister! I wish we had a name for her but I like Murderbot calling her Small Human, also it shows her the video she wants to see but scrubs out all the gore and violence (it doesn't care though humans are stupid)

never wanted fanart of anything so much as Murderbot, upon hearing Mensah startled by a journalist and drop a bottle of almond milk, jump over Ratthi's head, run 100m down a corridor, scream at the journalist and catch the bottle of almond milk. (aside: that story breaks my heart. you see her from Murderbot's POV as a leader of men. compassionate and brilliant and a diamond under pressure. and from her own POV she's screaming and she can't stop.)

not that all cops are bastards, only that after a meeting with them Mensah tries to persuade her partners, kids and siblings that they should give up on humanity, move to an uninhabited continent and take up new careers in soil reclamation

ART, when its blorbos die in its shows. The bot equivalent of staring at the wall for seven and a half minutes. HI ART.

"I came for our mutual friend." jesus. It picks her up and saves her and lets her hug it. She tells it fear and anger are the enemy. (and then the crew freak out at the woman who stood down a homicidal killer robot by glaring at it.) (I love Mensah the most. no one knew this.)

Amena's parents are two probably normal people plus a planetary leader and a sentient killer robot

ART finds out Mensah is coming aboard and shouts at everyone to start cleaning (ART you're so neurotic)

ART and its sister Iris

ART and Murderbot are having a baby (I know I did that one already)

Round Here We Save The World Through The Power of Documentary Filmmaking

Mensah.

[imitationgame77]

Poking sensation in the Feed (tmbd)

It is interesting that Murderbot seems to get awareness of "poking" in the feed as something akin to physical sensations.

All Systems Red

Dr. Gurathin, the least talkative one, was an augmented human and had his own implanted interface. I could feel him poking around in the data, while the others, using the touch interfaces, were just distant ghosts. I had a lot more processing power than he did, though.

Artificial Condition

It said, You’re a rogue SecUnit, a bot/human construct, with a scrambled governor module. It poked me through the feed and I flinched. It said, Do not attempt to hack my systems, and for .00001 of a second it dropped its wall.

ART poked me hard enough to make me twitch. I snapped out of it and ran my recording back a little to catch up on what was happening.

ART poked me. I see it, I told it. The search had turned up a series of notices posted around the right timeframe.

Network Effect

The SecSystem poked me in response and I told it everything was fine, and it went back to happily interfacing with me again.

System Collapse

“So we land on flat ground somewhere, the area looks stable,” Tarik said. He’s not stupid. I think he was trying to annoy ART-drone, but I poked Ratthi on our private feed connection with a video file.

Of course, ART-drone said. It poked me in the threat assessment module. And what is the probability of that, again, exactly?

My impression (without getting different POV) is that constructs like Murderbot and bots like ART perceive poking in the feed as something similar to physical poking. Instantaneous and attention-catching. Humans perceive them more like alert notification. (probably stronger poke than the Facebook poke function...)

Ratthi responds to Murderbot's poke because it was a video file, set to autoplay.

Augmented humans with extra feed interface like Gurathin and Iris (?) may be more sensitive to pokes, but not sure if they flinch/twitch in response.

ART can poke Murderbot in specific place, like threat assessment module. Maybe it's a super AI thing, but I suspect it is because ART is given access to all the assessment modules (e.g., threat assessment module, performance reliability assessment module) during this mission. Again sounds pretty intimate.

[mayone]

せっかくだしシステム・クラッシュを読んでるときの感想を転記するやつをやりますが、本編引用の原語箇所を探してくるのがむずいので日本語本文の引用のまんまのやつをやります

I'd like to do a post about my impressions of system collapse, but it's hard to find the quotes in the original language, so I'll just use the quotes as they are in the Japanese version of the book.

🚀

>ARTにとってアイリスは、弊機にとってのラッティのような存在です（Iris is to ART what Ratthi is to me.)

それは…だいぶ…ラッティのことが…大事だね？ ARTが比較的過激に乗組員のことだいじだいじしとるからそういう感じがするのかもね

That's... pretty... important... for Ratthi, isn't it? Maybe it feels that way because ART is relatively radical in taking care of its crew.

🚀

ふーん内訳の明記されない大声ね。睡眠時間中の。ふーん…と思っていたらやはりそういうので、フフ！と思ったし、フフ！という顔をしました

Hmmm...loud voices with no breakdown.During sleeping hours.Hmmm... and then I thought, still that's what it is, so ☺!I thought, and then I made a face like that.

🚀

うわっARTからアイリスの二人称「きみ」なんだ…いいな…めっちゃいい…素だとそうなんだ…

Wow, from ART, Iris's second person is "きみ(kimi)"... that's nice... very nice... that's how it is in its bare form...

Have I already talked about the nuances of the second person "きみ"？

Like talking to a friendly, equal partner?Like talking to a good friend in a slightly pretentious way?Like there's a little bit of respect?A sense of familiarity?

It's like something a superior would use for something lower in rank... or at least not appear in honorific form?

If a machine-like being uses this second personfor human, it's like I know that oh it was created to at least be able to interact with humans on an equal footing.

Yes, the second person used by SecUnit for Miki.Oh... And it is also the second person used by Miki for SecUnit. Ah, “きみ” is what Ratthi uses for SecUnit! Familiarity!

By the way, what did you call ART and SecUnit respectively? ART→SecUnit「おまえ」 (Basically, a word used from a superior to a inferior, arrogant, rude, or a warm call to arms used for a close companion or a good-natured friend)(!) SecUnit→ART「あなた」 (Pretty flat language, a bit formal? Since this is the default second person in SecUnit, it is also used for Ratthi and Dr. mensah. It can be used anywhere and by anyone, but it is a curious word that has the nuance of “partner” especially when used to refer to someone emotionally close to. In English, it is “you” 99.9% of the time, but in the remaining 0.1% of the time, it is used as “dear,” “darling,” or “sweet”… It is strange when I look at it again.) Well, there's no end to the number of ways to use “you” as a second person, it's inaccurate, and since it's the flattest and most common second person (according to various theories), it probably doesn't mean that much… but it's interesting, isn't it? えっ嘘みたいに長くなった。いったん切ります。 Oh what a joke, it's been so long. I'll cut it off once. 👋🚀

[petuline]

So we know Iris is ART's Ratthi. But who will Three's Ratthi be?

One of MB's Preservation humans? A different Preservation human? Or one of ART's crew? Or a yet unknown character, possibly Holism's crew person?

Or maybe it will pull a Murderbot, wander off on its own and decide it does not need a Ratthi.

Either way, I NEED at least a tiny novella about Three.

[rosewind2007]

System Collapse, spoiler:

Also, while I could understand Tarik’s confusion, Ratthi wasn’t wrong. I ran a quick query on hatch shape in my media storage, focusing on popular adventure and suspense/horror dramas and the high incidence of hazardous fauna, raiders, human and/or bot murderers, and/or magical fauna, unidentified but terrifying dark presences, and straight up monsters associated with round hatches. I sent the results into the team feed.

ART-drone said, You wasted processing space on that?

“Eighty percent,” Ratthi said, genuinely shocked. “I thought I was making a joke.”

As the ramp lowered, Iris swung up onto it. “It’s not the shape of the hatch,” she said, “it’s the symmetry of the columns to either side.”

Me:

There’s always an Iris