#secunit 3

[fluister]

Ratthi and Murderbot (and ART, probably) introducing Three to Sanctuary Moon

[fandom-space-princess]

hey so do you ever think about how Murderbot prefers to watch fiction because that was how it first taught itself to process the world beyond its prior experiences. and how Three prefers nonfiction for probably close to the exact same reason (that it taught itself to process the world beyond its prior experiences through nonfiction i.e. Murderbot's memories). do you ever think about how many of Murderbot's mannerisms Three is almost certainly picking up. and how many of them Murderbot itself probably originally picked up from reruns of Sanctuary Moon.

because I think about this. you know. the normal amount.

[lost-in-derry]

Me in any given social situation:

- The Murderbot Diaries: Network Effect

[foxprints]

Murderbot, Three, and ART off on some sort of adventure!

[jadefyre]

debugged: a Murderbot Diaries Comic by jadefyre

A big thank you to @blessphemy for cheering me on while I did the first draft of this back in, uh, July. And for giving me the perfect title :D

Now available on AO3!

Image descriptions are in ALT text but if you have trouble reading those, I'll include them here as well.

Page 1:

A title/splash page. Title reads: debugged, by jadefyre. Image is of an idyllic scene of a hill with a trail leading down it. The trail has a fence, and on the other side of the fence are grass, pushes, and a pond with a toad and some reeds and cattails. In the background are trees and two small figures cresting the hill. In the mid-ground is a drone with the effect text "whrrrr" next to it.

Page 2:

Panel 1: The same idyllic scene as the title page, now zoomed in on the area with the pond. The two people are now walking beside the pond: One is Ratthi, who is gesticulating and chatting, and the other is Murderbot, walking behind him, with its drones floating around its head as it looks over at the pond as the toad jumps into the water. Both have backpacks on and are apparently out for a hike.

Panel 2: A closeup of Ratthi, who is saying: "Thanks again for coming, by the way. I know you usually prefer more notice than this."

Panel 3: A closeup of Murderbot, who says: "I wasn't about to let you go alone into the wilderness." Coming from off-screen to the reader's right is a speech caption saying "bzzz"

Panel 4: Even more of a closeup of Murderbot, showing just the side of its head. On its right is a mosquito-like bug coming closer with the effect text "bzzz."

Panel 5: Back to the first closeup of Murderbot, who has the effect text of two exclamation marks next to its head. The bug has landed on its cheek with the effect text "*land*"

Page 3:

Panel 1: Murderbot squashes the bug, its eyes closed tight. The effect text "*splat*" is next to its swatting palm.

Panel 2: With a disgusted expression on its face, Murderbot is looking down at the squashed bug on its hand. Above it is a stylized ellipses, and it says, "Ew. There are so many bugs out here."

Panel 3: A closeup with Ratthi with Murderbot visible over his shoulder. Ratthi is saying, "Do you want some bug spray?" Murderbot has a blank expression stylized as two dots for eyes and a line for its mouth. There are a drone and a handful of bugs near it.

Panel 4: The panel refocuses on Murderbot, who has a stressed set to its mouth as it looks off to the side. It says, "Uh. No Thanks, that's even worse. I think."

Panel 5: A swarm of bugs going "bzzz, bzzz" hovers at the top left of the panel with an indicator arrow pointing at it and text saying (swarm). Ratthi is below, shrugging and saying, "Okay, suit your self." There an indicator arrow and text that says "bug-free" next to him.

Panel 6: The swarm seems to be dive-bombing Murderbot from the top left. Murderbot backs away to the right with its hands up while saying, "Uhhhh..."

Page 4:

Panel 1: A closeup of a couple of Murderbot's drones, as well as some bugs. The text says, in a console-style monospace font: ">> drone_swarm, new directive: seek (image of bug), destroy: (image of bug), > initiate_"

Panel 2: More drones and bugs. The drones turn toward the bugs with a crosshair with the effect text, "targeting" as the bugs buzz around.

Panel 3: Splash panel with a bold effect text in chunky font saying "bzzzz" in capital letters and a blast-caption shape around it. Murderbot is standing with its face covered by its hands as the drones attempt to eliminate the bugs with "pew pew pew" effect text and targeting crosshairs. More bugs are flying in from off-screen.

Panel 4: Closeup of Murderbot's face looking stressed. As the bug-drone battle rages on with "bzzz" and "pew pew" effects, Murderbot thinks, "There's too many, the drones can't get them all"

Page 5:

Panel 1: The same closeup as the previous page's fourth panel, now with an expressionless Murderbot as it dives into the feed. There are suggestions of lines of text flowing across its eyes to indicate this. A popup text box on the left side says: "database search: bug repellent." the bullet point list beneath it says: "spray, cover bare skin, citronella candles, high-frequency tones"

Panel 2: A full-body shot of Murderbot with the same two dots and a line expression on its face as a drone and a bug circle it.

Panel 3: The same shot, but now Murderbot's head is pointing to the right, its mouth is open comically wide, and it emits a frequency (evoking the image of a bat with echolocation) at the bug, which has the effect text "*urk*" next to it.

Panel 4: A closeup of the bug amidst the frequency lines and an ellipses over its head.

Panel 5: The same closeup of the bug, but now it has turned around and goes buzzing in the other direction.

Page 6:

A full-page picture. At the top are a multitude of featureless dots indicating the bug swarm, with a few detailed bugs in the fore- and midground, and below them, Murderbot is walking, surrounded by drones emitting the same frequency lines as Murderbot did before. There are no bugs near Murderbot. A handful of indicator arrows point at the drones with the text, "emitting frequency only bugs and SecUnits can hear." An indicator arrow points at Murderbot with text saying, "filtered out that frequency from its audio."

Page 7:

Panel 1: "Later…" Murderbot is hanging out while its drones emit the bug-repelling frequency. An indicator arrow points at Murderbot with text saying, "watching media outdoors, bug-free." Secunit 3 approaches from behind with a question mark over its head. It says, "1 point-oh, what is wrong with your drones?"

Panel 2: Murderbot turns toward Three as its drones power down with effect text that says "zhewww". Additional effect text says ">> drone_swarm, pause" as Three continues looking at Murderbot.

Panel 3: Murderbot and Three continue looking at each other. Murderbot says, "Well, uh…" while Three raises a skeptical eyebrow.

Panel 4: The same shot, but now with a "bzzzz" sound effect across most of the top of the panel. Murderbot says "Nothing" as it and Three are being swarmed by bugs to the point where it's hard to see them. Three looks shocked and says, "Ack! Turn them back on! Turn them back on!!!"

Page 8:

Panel 1: "Later still…" Murderbot and Three are represented as floating heads with no background detail or bodies. They are surrounded by multiple instances of an "eee" text effect, as well as drones that do not appear to be emitting the frequency. Murderbot says, "So apparently the frequency thing only works on bugs from this specific area" and Three says, "That's weird, I wonder why"

Panel 2: Murderbot turns to Three and says, "I bet Ratthi would know. Turn off your sound shield, I'll comm him." Three says, "I don't have mine on. I thought you had yours on."

Panels 3–5 are in a row. In order, Murderbot first looks blankly at Three, then it looks down, and then its eyes get wide as it continues looking down.

Panel 6: A splash panel showing Murderbot and Three seated next to a bunch of frogs while their drones hover around their heads. All of the frogs are saying "eeee," while one of them catches a bug. The rest of the bugs are fleeing the scene. A text box reads: Preservation screaming toads: natural predator of the Preservation mosquito."

End of comic.

(I'm not very skilled at captioning so if there's something I've missed or should've done different please (kindly) let me know!)

[ghostcashewart]

"I've never retrieved another Sec-Unit before. There is no protocol for this." - Network Effect by Martha Wells

i decided to draw a more action-y murderbot scene!

[broken-risk-assessment-module]

rip secunit 3 😔😔😔 you're not dead but you would have loved saving the lives of a whole colony of innocent humans by making a factually honest and emotionally compelling documentary 😔😔😔

[psumnt-studentcouncil]

Tree headcanons!

I really just took the fact it’s into non-fiction media and ran with it lmao

[m00nymonster]

Eeehehehe Murderbot ita bag! Look for this at ALA to get your ribbon~~

Thank you Fig Owl and @foxprints ! Fig Owl made the QR code (it says ART sent me) and pins, Fox made the print and keychain! This was so much fun!!

[ID: A silver star purse with a clear front. Glued to the outside is a QR code that reads ART sent me when scanned. Inside it is two large pins, one with white writing and black outline that says ART SENT ME, and a large white pin with The Murderbot Diaries logo in red. There is also a keychain of ARTdrone holding Three who is pulling Murderbot up by its sweatshirt. This is in the center of the bag. On the right is a large print of ART and Murderbot. /ID]

[gafurtle]

More thoughts on Secunit 3!

One thing Martha Wells does to distinguish Murderbot’s and Three’s narrations is to make Three’s present tense.

From a Doylist perspective, it’s surely because both narrations are first-person and the readers need to know who’s who immediately without getting confused. There’s ALREADY MB and MB 2.0 and a THIRD past-tense first-person narration would surely be confusing. This way the reader can immediately clock whether the Murderbot(s) or Three are talking.

But from a Watsonian perspective, I think there’s an in-character reason too? MB gets its emotional framework from fiction, like books and TV shows and movies, which tend to be narrated in the past tense if at all. Whereas Three didn’t watch thousands of hours of serials - it’s a person experiencing new weird things, and I feel like that’s reflected in the present-tense “oh shit I guess this is happening now” narrative voice.

I dunno. I just like it as a fun character touch.

[hopedtheredbestars]

Basically how it went down.

[void-star]

I'm thinking about that augmented human HubSystem, and Three's unnamed feelings towards the other SecUnits it was with, and its unique form of non-verbal communication a lot after the end of System Collapse.

Like, how this impacts its relationship to others, and to itself. My thoughts are this:

Three doesn't receive direction from a machine, it receives direction and command from a human. Obviously this is still a form of control and enslavement. These augmented humans essentially function as slave overseers.

The augmented human HubSystem is (according to MurderBot) easier to fool. They are human, after all, even with all the augmentations and what seem to be really questionable living conditions themselves.

We also see that they can be distracted, that their control of the SecUnits can be disrupted specifically because they are a physical human being existing in a physical space as a person with a body and a nervous system and all that.

Three's non-verbal communication is intentional and distinct, and the way Three defaults to interacting with MurderBot in System Collapse. It takes ART, MurderBot, and others to be able to figure out how to understand it.

Meaning that, to me, Three (and potentially other B-E SecUnits), are more accustomed to being able to have a system of relationships... between each other, and with their augmented human HubSystem.

I think Three had feelings for SecUnits 1 and 2 that were reciprocated (it's funny that MurderBot didn't bother to ask Three about it), and they were able to have some kind of relationship to each other through the development of their own specific and unique way to communicate with each other that wouldn't be caught by their augmented human HubSystem.

Maybe Three does have a problem with people pleasing and fawning. I'm actually inclined to believe that part of MurderBot's suspicion of Three's self-autonomy is founded, that it isn't so clear if Three understands it can say no, or that it doesn't have the skills to be able to (big mood).

But I also think MurderBot's opinions about Three are the unique combination of ways that MurderBot assumes its experience is universal, and its own feelings about Three it is not admitting to itself... as it is wont to do.

I do wish that System Collapse involved more of the two of them directly interacting, that they could have started to grow together as a unit. But I also think, given MurderBot's general everything, it would have to be a real slow build up into that.

From the bottom of my heart, though, I think Three was already fond of MurderBot since back in Network Effect, and I think MurderBot deciding they need to figure out what Three "actually wants" after it said it would like to go with Holism to learn about Infrastructure Proposals is because it's fond of Three, too.

But so far, Three has been trying to bond, and MurderBot has been rejecting it.

[fandom-space-princess]

so the thing about the scene in System Collapse where Three offers Murderbot its armor and Murderbot doesn't take it is that this is an excellent example of Murderbot sometimes being an unreliable narrator, not in an attempt to intentionally mislead, but because its own background and experiences are so specific that it often misinterprets others' intentions. Murderbot says this scene happens because Three doesn't grasp that it might have personal possessions that belong to it, but the timing and context of the offer (and the fact that Three repeats it later, when MB has to go down to the planet) suggest that Three understands perfectly well what it is offering. Murderbot doesn't always trust its own internality and/or motivations, and that bleeds over into broad distrust for Three's as well, but its perceptions are also informed by the fact that it has no close experience working with others like it before. Three *does* have that experience, to whatever extent. Imo it knew exactly what it was doing when it offered its armor to MB, and it understood the rejection to some extent as well, or it wouldn't have made the offer a second time.

[crabs-brencil]

random secunit three sketches plus one i did in lecture lol

[elkian]

I have finished my Network Effect reread and noted another difference.

(Also, can I say? Martha Wells managing completely different voices for 1.0 and 3 is truly amazing given their similar backgrounds and the much shorter amount of time 3 gets to be on screen? I'm not as sure about how 2.0's voice differs or not from 1.0 but there's still some great POV shift happening here.)

During my reread, I'd idly noted that Murderbot's perspective was always past-tense. I though this was a little odd for how it seemed to be narrating current events, though maybe it was a carryover from how the first book was essentially a retrospective diary that it left on Mensah's nightstand.

But it came back to the fore when I realized:

3 thinks in present-tense.

Its narration style differs from 1.0 anyways - more standardized report-style at first, though whether its headers becoming shorter is a personal choice or Wells' decision to speed things up could be read either way. But, 3 always thinks in the present tense! It even throws "is" into sentences with a verb that ends with "-ed" to make clear that everything is present. It's interesting, and I think is part of what contributes to it sounding "younger" than MB - everything is old news for Murderbot, who's been doing this a while, while everything is new (and has no protocol to prep around) for 3. Just a fun detail.

[measlyscrapofseafood]

murderbot and three for @3-inch-sam

og image below the cut