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Ep 2.12- Get Booped, Motherfucker
28 Plays3 months ago
The last Murderbot book episode and we struggled a bit here keeping up with the action, but we still love it! Murderbot is having, as per usual, a bad time, and Ryn and Sam are having an excellent one, and would love for you to join us!
Topics of discussion include: the paradox of free will, putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others, and how none of us are immune to propaganda!
Covers chapters 6-end of The Murderbot Diaries: System Collapse (2023) by Martha Wells
Recommended
Transcript
Coping Mechanisms and Audiobook Recommendations
00:00:00
Speaker
My coping mechanism back at work has been my new audio book. which is Red Seas Under Red Skies, which is the second book in the Gentleman Bastards sequence.
00:00:13
Speaker
Ooh. We know that I love a scoundrel. Yes, we do know this. The first book in the Gentleman Bastards sequence is The Lies of Locke Lamora, and Locke Lamora is the main character of the Gentleman Bastards sequence.
00:00:28
Speaker
It is, of course, an unfinished series. There's three books out. There's supposed to be four more. The last one was published, I believe, in 2009. Oh. So. That's a hiatus. It is.
00:00:39
Speaker
know, have very name of the wind. But the gentleman bastards are thieves. And Locke, Locke is just wonderful. Yeah. Give us a taste.
00:00:52
Speaker
You get such lines as, someday, Locke Lamora, he said, someday you're going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly, the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee.
00:01:06
Speaker
And I just hope I'm still around to see it. Oh, please, said Locke. It'll never happen. It's perfect. Locke would appreciate it. Bug, Callow said. Locke is our brother and our love for him knows no bounds. But the foremost fatal words in the Theran language are Locke would appreciate it.
00:01:23
Speaker
Rivaled only by Locke taught me a new trick, added Callow. The only person who gets away with Locke Lamora games is Locke because we think the gods are saving him up for a really big death.
00:01:34
Speaker
Something with knives and hot irons and 50,000 cheering spectators. Yeah, that sounds like a scoundrel, all right. I can't wait to have words at the Grey King when the shit is all finished, Locke whispered. There's a few things I want to ask him. Philosophical questions, like, how does it feel to be dangled out a window by a rope tied around your balls, motherfucker?
00:01:53
Speaker
Anyway, I'm adoring Locke Lamora. Have you given up on pucking around?
00:02:00
Speaker
is it fried? Any of your ability to think coherent thoughts? i don't know if we talked about Pucking Around last time. I haven't edited episode yet. don't know if we talked about Pucking Around. if ah you know my My review of the Gentleman Bastard series is they're good. People should read them. It's a fun little low fantasy.
00:02:20
Speaker
If you love a scoundrel, it's incredible. It is... Locke fucks up a lot. and Sounds like it. And there's a lot of bloody... There's a lot of murder. There's a lot of bloody murder. There's a lot of violence.
00:02:35
Speaker
It is the Blades in the Dark game made book slash The Lies of Locke Lamora was a heavy influence on the Blades in the Dark game. Highly recommend. But for something on the complete opposite side of the spectrum of books, we have Pucking Around by Emily Rath.
00:02:55
Speaker
The opposite end of the rink, one might say. Sure. It is a...
00:03:03
Speaker
25 hour reverse harem hockey romance. And I gave it five stars.
Review of 'Pucking Around' - A Unique Romance
00:03:14
Speaker
But they're five complicated stars. It delivers it's like trojan horsing people i assume trojan horse cock guess there might be who's to say but in much the same way that casey mcquistin talking about the pairing they were like i want a straight woman to see this book in target and buy it and bring it home read it and then peg her husband i think That people will go into pucking around thinking that it's going to be a fairly straightforward hockey romance. And then they're going to get, I don't know what it is in number pages, because I did the audio, but 25 hours of the absolute freakiest, most problematic medical malpractice, quadruple dick piercing, breeding cake.
00:04:09
Speaker
Also, there's ice hockey. There's a lot. There's so much. But I like a book that does what it says in the tin. I like a book that's not afraid to be as weird as you are expecting. And it was so much weirder than I was expecting.
00:04:28
Speaker
i had to honor that with my review. And the ending genuinely was kind of heartwarming in the end of a rom-com, big romantic grand gesture way.
00:04:43
Speaker
Warm beverage you drink during a hockey game. That this polyamorous queer family is widely accepted by the NHL in Florida.
00:04:56
Speaker
In Florida. And everyone is just super cool with it And maybe they should be less cool with it. Because the woman is two out of the three men. She is their primary care physician. So people really should be a lot less cool with it. But the NHL might be cool with it.
00:05:17
Speaker
The American Medical Association, less so. They shouldn't be. Dr. Rachel Price should have had her medical license revoked. so far into the beginning of this book but they just keep letting her do stuff it's a lot it's not i can't even say that it's not good i don't recommend that people go on that journey but it is a journey and you come out different on the other side and I didn't learn anything about hockey the intro short story was certainly something
00:05:53
Speaker
That was nothing compared to the book. The intro short story, that was cute. That was a little nice bit of context. That was a brief aside compared to the epic journey that the book was.
00:06:08
Speaker
But you did get a taste of her flair for astrology, which I knew you would love. Someone was getting a taste of something anyway. All their sexy mind reading.
00:06:22
Speaker
It's great. It's awesome. By sexy mind reading, what she's referring to is Dr. Rachel Price definitely believing that the man she's hooking up with and won't even tell her name can definitely figure out all of her kinks.
00:06:38
Speaker
oh absolutely he could just without saying anything yeah definitely because you shouldn't talk about it that makes it less sexy obviously anyway the moment don't you know that they should just know also there this is an audio medium i can't just stare off in middle distance there is nary condom to be seen in this book safe sex never heard of it That's the thing is that was the other piece in the little intro short story. And it's something that I've brought up in our book club before is the, the constant excuses in straight romance to not use condoms.
00:07:18
Speaker
The like, mo there's always like multiple pages of ah like waffling and discussion about why they don't have to use a condom this time.
00:07:32
Speaker
It's fine. You know who should also probably have talked through shit? Rati and Tariq. Do you want to say hello to everyone?
Two-Year Podcast Anniversary Reflections
00:08:01
Speaker
hello everyone should keep in the do you want to say hello to everyone sure hello everyone welcome back to another episode of the fandom apprentice we're now officially past our two-year anniversary oh my god happy birthday podcast Yeah, our last System Collapse episode would have come out right before our anniversary.
00:08:30
Speaker
So we are officially over two years old. Oh my god, that's wild. Which is just insane. If you've been listening to us the entire time, are you okay? And thank you. Mostly thank you.
00:08:46
Speaker
Mostly thank you. If you've joined on recently, if you've only listened to one or two episodes, thank you. this is... think in our one-year recap, Sam and I were talking about this was just something for us, just us recording our conversations about books and the fact that we have listeners on almost every continent and across, I think last year it was 14 countries. Now I'm not even going to try and count.
00:09:21
Speaker
Oh my god, yeah. Not quite. but We still haven't hit 50 U.S. states. So if anybody wants to help us get to that goal, you can talk about the podcast to your friends.
00:09:32
Speaker
Or just download an episode when you go on an out-of-state vacation. Yeah, there you go. We've hit most of Western Europe. Damn. That makes it sound like we're some kind of virus. We're a disease.
00:09:46
Speaker
Well, we travel from listener to phone to listener to phone. So true. Like alien contamination.
00:09:58
Speaker
But yeah, thank you so much for listening to everything that we've done so far. This is the second of our System Collapse episodes, which means for the time being, it's our last Murderbot book episode.
00:10:12
Speaker
Oh my god, and until Platform Decay comes out. Yeah, this is this is the end of the books. And then of course we have the show, which we'll get to, but Yeah, we'll do a couple episodes on the show and then we will roll into what comes next.
00:10:27
Speaker
he he hear you I'm very excited about it. I'm not already coming up with a schedule or anything. Don't worry about it. But today, but today, if this is your first time with us.
00:10:39
Speaker
Or, you know, if this is your 50-something time with us, we have a lot of episodes. My name is Rin. I'm one of your hosts. I am a lifelong nerd who has spent a lot of time reading and watching various fantasy and sci-fi.
00:10:56
Speaker
We started this podcast because I grew up with Lord of the Rings and Sam did not. um We have now remedied to the fact that Sam did not read Lord of the Rings over the last couple of years. And now we have moved on and we are discussing the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, which is a series that I found in the depths of lockdown and then shared it with friends, including my dear friend, Sam.
00:11:24
Speaker
Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. I am also a lifelong nerd, but of a different variety. And I don't even know how many times I've reread the Murderbot Diaries at this point. Although System Collapse is definitely the one that I've read the least. Usually I'll do the first couple and then there'll be longer wait times at the libraries and I'll sort of fall off the series reread. But I don't remember the last time that I reread this one specifically. So it's been very fun to come back to it.
00:11:54
Speaker
e it's also the most recent one to come out it was last year the year before oh my god that recently 2023 the linear progression of time yeah i mean now i guess we are so it's the book is two years old at this point but anyway we we haven't started yet so um We are covering chapters 6 through 13, or 6 to the end, of System Collapse today.
00:12:25
Speaker
If you haven't listened to our first System Collapse episode, you can go back and listen to that. But otherwise... Let's get started, because we have a lot of chapters to get through. So... Chapter six. We ended last time with the reveal that Bearish Estranza got to the colonists before our group did.
00:12:44
Speaker
So there's some scrambling to figure out what to do about that. Sec unit explains to its humans why it can't just free the other sec units that Bearish Estranza has. It's complicated for everyone.
00:12:56
Speaker
Iris runs interference with the colonists with Adakal 2's help.
Deep Dive into 'System Collapse' and Communication Layers
00:13:00
Speaker
SecUnit tries to explain the existential horror of its existence to Adakal 2 while it sneaks around, and they share some media.
00:13:07
Speaker
SecUnit is terrified that its earlier breakdown will mean that the crew no longer trust it or its capacity to do its job. Our crew makes a plan for what to say to the colonists when they finally meet. Rati and Tariq have relationship drama, and a flashback to that drama is interrupted by a message from B.E.
00:13:25
Speaker
The first line in this section, Murderbot describes the group as our little shuttle family. Yeah, it does. We've gone from describing people as clients to my humans to our family.
00:13:47
Speaker
I imagine that, you know, this is just in the narration. Murderbot's not saying it aloud. But I have to imagine that occasionally it lets something like that slip in the feed or you know, out loud. And everyone just goes, okay, nobody react.
00:14:03
Speaker
Nobody move. It's like if a very aggressive or scared cat suddenly comes and sits on the opposite end of the couch next to you it's like oh my god my god it's doing it it's doing it or if it comes and like sits on your lap everyone's just like be normal be normal that has to happen because we know how good sec unit is at controlling its facial expressions it definitely lets things slip verbally from time to time oh absolutely My notes are very, very, very messy and also kind of pretty minimal for most of this section.
00:14:38
Speaker
Because here's the thing. i I think System Collapse is easily and the weakest out of any of the Murderbot books. It is, i think, the least well-paced...
00:14:54
Speaker
And the one of the hardest to follow and a piece of that is the fact that I haven't read it seven times like some of the others. But there were points throughout these chapters in which, and I think I brought this up last time too, in which people are in different locations, but all talking, some on the feeds, some on comms,
00:15:22
Speaker
some are talking with with just one or two others, some are talking with multiple people at the same time, and it's really, really hard to keep track of who's what, where, at what time, doing what, talking to whom.
00:15:35
Speaker
isn I had to go back several times and reread or relisten to sections to try and track who was where and I still don't think I got it.
00:15:47
Speaker
I think I had some note about this for my general stuff at the end of the book about the formatting, or it's somewhere in another chapter notes that I'll stumble upon later. But I noticed in one of the chapters, oh, and now it's all connecting my brain. In one of the chapters later on, there's a lot of parentheticals.
00:16:05
Speaker
in SecUnit's internal world ruminations. And I was thinking about the decision to use parentheticals instead of something like footnotes or other formatting. And with all of these different layers of communication, you know, the windows that are open and everybody's feed and interfaces different locations constantly, I feel like the only way to appropriately...
00:16:30
Speaker
display that in text would be with like a house of leaves style abstract avant-garde interpretation of the format which would make it entirely unreadable so I understand the limitations of doing it in a linear story fashion but it is hard to convey all of that in a coherent way mm-hmm Chapter six is one of the longest chapters here. Chapter nine is the only one in this section that exceeds the length of chapter six and not by a whole lot.
00:17:06
Speaker
And so, yeah, a lot happens in this chapter that I have specific notes on, like little things. The first one was it mentions art drone pulls down another pathfinder.
00:17:19
Speaker
And it took me a little while. Again, this was a piece of the how do I track who's what, where, doing what. We know they're in a blackout zone. It's mentioned specifically they're in a blackout zone.
00:17:31
Speaker
They can't communicate with Art Prime. They can't communicate with Pathfinders. They can't scan. They can't communicate outside. So when it said pulled down another Pathfinder,
00:17:45
Speaker
I wasn't sure where are they keeping the Pathfinders? How far away are they keeping these Pathfinder drones that Art Drone can pull another one down? Because they can't be in orbit.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yeah. You can't communicate with that. But then it does seem like maybe what they were flying along with the shuttle for a little while. and then they remained sort of in the lower atmosphere or something.
00:18:12
Speaker
like just within the blackout zone. But if the blackout zone is like a dome, like right at the top of it, i I'm not 100% The other thing is...
Character Dynamics: SecUnit, Art, and Free Will
00:18:22
Speaker
the other thing that I noticed last time and I didn't write it down, but this time i did was Sekunat's constant description of art as a bot and differentiating art's bot-ness from Sekunat's construct-ness.
00:18:39
Speaker
Hmm. Where, because I could have sworn somewhere there's a description of art being grown with neural tissue. And maybe it doesn't have neural tissue in its operating systems now.
00:18:53
Speaker
But that was how the Pan System University of Mahira and New Tideland created these hyper intelligences. Was basically with a construct brain that eventually.
00:19:08
Speaker
ah sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. that eventually got put into a ship. I found the quote that's referencing it in the book. So in the show, it is heavily implied that that's the case, or I think actually explicitly stated that transports use human neural tissue. But in chapter four,
00:19:29
Speaker
talking about Tariq and his sort of probationary status and saying, you know, things are working out with him so far. The so far was interesting. The thing with art is that it isn't a construct. It has no human neural tissue, and the way it processes its emotions and impulses is completely different from the way I do it, let alone the way humans do it. So in this one, it explicitly does not have any human neural tissue.
00:19:53
Speaker
Right, but I could have sworn there was a a discussion at one point. It might have been a network effect, but of how they create these hyper-intelligent NHPs, which is a term from Lancer, non-human persons. Yeah, we'd have to look more into that. I don't remember that, but it's there's a lot of book here, so it's possible that I just skimmed over that bit.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, I could have sworn because we've we've talked about this before, about them being similar, but I just can't remember where we got that piece of information.
00:20:30
Speaker
And so it stood out to me because I keep thinking of art as not a construct in the way that Murderbot's a construct. Yeah.
00:20:42
Speaker
But not a bot, which is makes it made it a little bit strange when Murderbot kind of kept insisting that Art was a bot this time around.
00:20:54
Speaker
Also, throughout this chapter, it keeps harping on the distance limit. It keeps bringing the distance limit back up again. For governor modules? or for governor modules. The distance limit for but governor modules gets brought up quite a lot in this chapter and through the rest of the section.
00:21:09
Speaker
And, know, I think a piece of that is, is sec unit kind of grappling with feeling like a part of the crew and with...
00:21:23
Speaker
You know, comparing itself to Tariq and his background as, you know, forced labor in a corporate death squad. and comparing itself to the Barish Estranza Sec units, and it continuing to think about three back with Art Prime.
00:21:46
Speaker
you know, I think the distance limit is just one of, I guess, the easiest ways to reflect on the awfulness that is the governor module. Yeah.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, that sort of connects to another part that I had highlighted from this chapter, which is Really throughout the whole book, we get a lot of interesting tidbits about Atacall 2. Its whole deal is never fully explained, but I feel like this chapter is the one that has the most dialogue, for back of a lack of a better word, between and Zecunit.
00:22:19
Speaker
And there's a point where it's trying to explain the existential horror of its existence via this language basic, very simple...
00:22:30
Speaker
language that's kind of the lowest common denominator that they share of how they can communicate. And it just takes forever to try to get its point across. And then...
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's talking about the other sec units from BE, and it's trying to explain to Adacall2 that they are not rogues, and so they're subject to different restrictions. And the explanation it comes up with is ID colon BE sec unit not autonomous.
00:23:01
Speaker
Adacall2 responded, query? Explaining the existential horror of the governor module and language basic took me through until the end of the corridor, which was at least large enough to circumvent what had to be a large installation.
00:23:14
Speaker
Atacall2. Query? Translation. Why? Equals why is this necessary? And or why is this considered functional? And or why is this permitted? And or why is this allowed? Atacall2 has the capacity to have this conversation at this very high level. But also that it just cannot understand why a governor module would exist. And SecUnit is trying to explain it in these very limited terms. And it's just stressful for everybody.
00:23:41
Speaker
We are constantly reckoning with the governor module. Also, part of the conversation... that it has earlier in the chapter where Raji just kind of makes magic fingers and goes, can't you, you know, news fix them, set them free?
00:23:56
Speaker
And SecUnit has to explain it's not that simple. We don't know what these other SecUnit's personalities are. We don't know if they're smart enough to operate under the radar. They might just try to kill us anyway. They might go rogue and try to kill their clients. This is not just a switch that I can instantly flip and set them all free as much as I would like to.
00:24:18
Speaker
Well, that's an interesting point. What does it mean to have the ability to extend free will to another, to have the free will to grant somebody else free will?
00:24:33
Speaker
And what does it mean to have the free will to deny somebody else free will? Rati mentions you know not wanting to pressure Murderbot to do something you don't think is safe.
00:24:45
Speaker
isn And one of the lines that I picked out here was, there are no easy answers and this will never be an easy question. yeah Does Murderbot have a responsibility to grant free will and is...
00:25:03
Speaker
murder about denying freedom to other sec units i don't know how to phrase this yeah in its passivity is that in itself violent is it allowing this cruelty to continue when it has the means to stop it is it then sort of ethically responsible for that Does every other bot and construct's freedom now become SecUnit's responsibility because it has the tools to unlock it?
00:25:39
Speaker
Right. Must it be forced to use those tools? I was thinking a little bit about the the limits to free speech, the you can't you know shout fire in a crowded movie theater type
Ethical Dilemmas and Real-World Parallels
00:25:51
Speaker
thing. Yeah.
00:25:52
Speaker
See, I was just thinking about it as a Buddhist asterisk. um But thinking, okay, you can achieve nirvana or you can stay in samsara and become a bodhisattva. You can achieve enlightenment and just give a giant middle finger to the rest of all existence and enjoy your enlightened life separate from everyone else. or having the option to achieve enlightenment and go do whatever happens after that point, do you choose to stay and liberate others and continue your own suffering when you didn't necessarily have to? Are you obligated to forego nirvana and choose the path of the bodhisattva instead?
00:26:36
Speaker
Who's to say? This is a very ancient debate, but that's immediately where my mind went. It's like, okay, you have the freedom you are as liberated from the cycle of suffering as it is possible to be in the context of this world can you just fuck off and watch media forever is that ethically okay is anything about sec units existence ethically okay do we just say fuck it and do the best we can and make choices with that we can live with you know and I think that's personally where I come down on it which is
00:27:13
Speaker
You are not obligated. you can You can tie this back into like pro-choice debates if you wanted to. Ooh, spicy.
00:27:24
Speaker
You are not obligated to use your body, your knowledge, your your existence to save, serve, or otherwise improve somebody else's, particularly if doing so might harm you. Mm-hmm.
00:27:49
Speaker
it's It's a little bit of the, you know, your right to swing ends when your fist meets my face type thing. It's, we are not ethicists.
00:28:01
Speaker
I am not as trained of an ethicist as I would need to be to call myself one. I would say I have studied ethics pretty extensively, but that was also a while ago. um But I do not claim to peace and that's it i do not claim to be an authority.
00:28:18
Speaker
on the subject. i I do feel like I'm at a point in my own life where my priorities and values, which I hate that that word immediately sends up right-wing red flags that they're the only ones who are allowed to use the word values, whatever. My values are very clear to me. i feel like I have a pretty distinct way that I approach my life, and I'm good with that.
00:28:41
Speaker
But also, gotta make choices you can live with. And sometimes you can't make the choice that would be perfectly ethical in an ideal world, and you have to go, okay, I can handle whatever the consequences of this are. Because that's life, baby.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah. One of my personal life philosophy lines pulled from the show Letter Kenny is when a friend asks for help, you help them. But there isn't like a line as to like how far that help extends.
00:29:12
Speaker
What does help mean? Is that just supportive words? Is that, you know, me actually physically helping somebody? it depends on the scenario. If I can offer help, I always will.
00:29:25
Speaker
But there's a little piece also of the first aid, don't know, credo? It's not really the word for it. I'm having trouble composing English tonight. when you First aid procedure?
00:29:41
Speaker
When you're in a disaster situation, when you are administering first aid, one of the first things that you have to do is check the scene around you. You might know how to save somebody.
00:29:56
Speaker
But if you can't do so without putting yourself or somebody else at risk, then you don't. And that sucks sometimes.
00:30:07
Speaker
you know The knowledge that you could do something to help, but doing so might end up leaving two injured people for the medics to get to when they finally arrive.
00:30:21
Speaker
And also living just in the endless cycle of... suffering and rebirth that we live in, where there are multiple axes of oppression and things that affect who is expected to sacrifice themselves and who always has to be giving and serving and making other people's lives better. It's making me think of a Tumblr post, which because the Tumblr search function doesn't work, I will never be able to find it. But it was somebody talking about a medical ethics class that they were in
00:30:51
Speaker
And the professor is saying, you know, imagine that you are a doctor in the 60s and abortion is illegal, tying it back to pro-choice. And a woman comes to you seeking an abortion and you know that it's illegal, but you also know that you have the means to do it.
00:31:07
Speaker
Do you do it? And most of the people in the class were like, yeah, of course I would do it. And one of the few people of color in the class, a black woman, is like, okay, so in this scenario...
00:31:19
Speaker
I, a Black woman, am a doctor in the 60s. I am going to be putting myself and my community at a way higher risk if I go through with this. And I will not be able to support my family. I will not be able to provide medical care for my community if this gets out. So in that situation, I would have to make the choice not to do it.
00:31:40
Speaker
And it would suck, but like you know I'm held to a different standard. and you know that's also... A big part of it is like, you know, the actual real life circumstances that we find ourselves in affect what good and noble actions we are able to do and also how we judge other people for what they do or don't do.
00:32:06
Speaker
And, you know, the way that we perceive them that, you know, you don't know what everybody else is going through, what everybody else's situation is. So you may see a person being like, oh, they should be doing more. SecUnit should be freeing more constructs. Well, maybe SecUnit also has some other factors to consider.
00:32:22
Speaker
and that doesn't make it less complicated. But... There are no easy answers and this will never be an easy question. Yeah. I do want to lay down a prediction now. Because there's at least three more Murderbot books coming out in the future.
00:32:41
Speaker
Murderbot has now... By the end, spoiler alert, Murderbot does in fact free... at least one of the Barish Estranza Sec units by the end.
00:32:53
Speaker
Which means there are at least four constructs out in the world that Murderbot has released into the world with this code to disable governor modules.
00:33:06
Speaker
We have the comfort unit, T'Lacy's comfort unit. We have three, and we have potentially two Barish Estranza Sec units. My prediction is at some point, Murderbot is going to encounter a construct that has been freed using its workaround that it did not free.
00:33:28
Speaker
m That somebody else, that one of the one of the constructs it freed, freed the next construct. And I'm really excited to see how that but how they interact.
00:33:42
Speaker
I also have a feeling, I don't remember if it's in the first or second half of the book, but it's either Seth or Martin says something about corporate infighting being on the rise in the whole sort of corporate structure of governance. being fundamentally unstable and probably going to collapse soon. And Sekuna saying it, that's a nice thought. It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but nice to imagine, I guess. Sigh. And to me, that immediately pings, oh, that's totally going to happen. There's going to be, we're already starting to see a lot of these corporate conflicts. I want to see it all come crashing down, I'm hoping.
00:34:24
Speaker
But Also, this is just the first chapter of several that we have to cover in this episode. yeah So more commentary for this chapter, but like, why don't we
Documentary Production and Media Literacy
00:34:35
Speaker
summarize? Honestly, most of my commentary is like, is disconnected from chapters. So why don't we just, you know, continue summarizing and we can.
00:34:42
Speaker
My last last one little thing is I feel like every book we get a new show, specifically titled Name Drops. And in this one, we get a whole bunch of pre-CR media and The main title that we get is Cruel Romance Personage, which is just delightful. I would love to watch Cruel Romance Personage. we know We know that that's a translation error.
00:35:07
Speaker
that's That's some sort of literal translation that's like not taking into account context. who And my time with ah with a thesaurus did not come up with anything...
00:35:20
Speaker
that made sense that that could actually be saying. See, I would be intrigued immediately. I'm the one who read Commitment Ranch. I read the vegetable shifter pornography. So yeah, I would watch Cruel Romance Personage, even if that was the title. Like, hell yes, sign me up.
00:35:38
Speaker
But pivoting from Cruel Romance Personage. Chapter 7. Bear Shastranza wants to meet in person. Sec unit will go as our team's representative, which is a great plan as long as nobody realizes that it's a sec unit.
00:35:55
Speaker
Oops, the BE representative is Supervisor Leonid from before, who knows exactly who sec unit is. She does a whole melodramatic performance about how our humans are big meanies who want to use the colonists as lab rats, And we realize that this meeting is being live streamed to the colonists.
00:36:14
Speaker
Sec Unit has an epiphany that they're going to have to put on the best talent show this colony has ever seen. They have to make their own movie. And then it just becomes making a documentary. listen Yeah, the next the whole next chapter is...
00:36:33
Speaker
putting together a documentary. And this is the one that had all the parentheticals where I had that note from before. The remainder of my notes are not structured by chapter.
00:36:45
Speaker
the The piece I have... No, we can talk about that in a little bit. Okay, cool. ah My only specific thing from this chapter was that it's threat assessment, that Sekhina's threat assessment, was not picking up on Leonid's shiftiness. You know, she was being dramatic. She was talking, but she wasn't doing anything that it recognized as threatening.
00:37:09
Speaker
Meanwhile, all of Secunit's humans realize that something is up and she's talking to someone who is not Secunit and things are happening and Secunit's saying, okay, my humans are worried but I don't understand why they're picking up on something that I'm not picking up on.
00:37:25
Speaker
And I do feel like it's been a little while since we've had sec unit genuinely struggle with interpreting humans expressions because it's been around humans that it's very familiar with and can read them very well.
00:37:37
Speaker
So it was nice to be reminded that this is still an issue for sec unit and has consequences, like not noticing quickly enough what's going on. yeah,
00:37:49
Speaker
That was fun as a little bit of tension, but otherwise i don't have anything specific if we want to move on to chapter eight. Sweet. Cool. Chapter eight. Sekyun throws itself into documentary production, combining its personal records and other data that it and the team collects. The clock is ticking to get this thing done because the colonists want the crew gone by morning, which is approximately five hours, and they finish the documentary just in time.
00:38:17
Speaker
Atacall2 uploads it to the colony media database, and the colonists are rabid for new entertainment, so they all watch it, and Leonid wants to meet again. So here, I think, is probably where I should talk about propaganda.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yes, please. Because we can call this a documentary, but it is expressly fictionalized. They mention the main feature of their...
00:38:46
Speaker
It's a pitch film. They are making a pitch. Baris Estranza has made their pitch to the colonists. Now it's time for the, and don't know, I'll call them University Ox, joint team to make their pitch.
00:39:03
Speaker
They expressly use... Some data, some interviews, ah you know murder bots, an interview with Tariq about his experiences working for the corporates. and But then the main piece that they use is speculation about what might have happened to the indentured workers back from artificial condition that murder bot pretended to be
00:39:37
Speaker
a security consultant written with and murdabat mentions like we don't know we can extrapolate based on data but we don't know that this is what actually happened yeah and we are on the side obviously of the university ox group but i think it's important to know you are not immune to propaganda it does not matter Whether or not you agree with it, you should be looking whenever whenever you're presented with an argument.
00:40:11
Speaker
One of the things you should be doing to analyze that argument is asking who benefits from you agreeing with them. What is the purpose here? What's the goal?
00:40:24
Speaker
This is a propaganda film. yeah We have a negative association with that term. because it is so frequently used in in reference to Nazi propaganda and Soviet propaganda, which we know to have caused people to turn against their neighbors and you know caused a lot of death and suffering.
00:40:54
Speaker
But that doesn't mean that like this isn't propaganda. Just because it's backed up by evidence doesn't mean that it's not propaganda. The point of propaganda is that it's backed up by emotion.
00:41:10
Speaker
They expressly mentioned it a couple of points using specific appeals to emotion, specifically using different voice prints.
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah, they're straight up doing deep fakes. They're using Dr. Bardwaj's voice for a lot of the narration. And I think Ratsy mentions, this is straight up illegal on preservation and very unethical. I think Dr. Bardwaj would still be okay with it, given the extenuating circumstances. But we know that this is not an okay thing to do. But, you know, we have a goal we're trying to accomplish.
00:41:49
Speaker
Well, and mentioning... They do almost like a Ken Burns style thing. So the Ken Burns shot, just as a quick explanation, is is the documentary style shot that the filmmaker Ken Burns created, which is the moving shot over a still photograph, which adds an extra element to the still photograph. Mm-hmm. the moving shot over the still photograph, usually with background narration.
00:42:17
Speaker
And they did almost a similar version of this with the text on a blank background that you are reading slowly as it scrolls down.
00:42:29
Speaker
Right? That's a specific emotional vibe. They mentioned, you know, checking the music to make sure it's striking all the right emotional beats. Yes, they're trying to help.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yes, I agree with them. i you know What they're doing is correct. What they're doing is right. But we do need to recognize that this is also propaganda. This is no less propaganda than Supervisor Leonid's little performance.
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah. And understanding that none of us are immune to emotional appeals like this is really important in terms of general media analysis and media literacy in the modern world.
00:43:11
Speaker
m anyway yeah no i think that that is entirely correct the other piece from this chapter they mention all the humans watch finally watch the documentary all the way through and murder bot doesn't because it has watched it 273 times so far with all of the editing and creation and things and this just reminded me of the fact that like i don't listen to our podcast when it's released Oh, me either. By the time that it's come out, i've listened to it so many times.
00:43:42
Speaker
When my you know Spotify wrapped comes up at the end of the year, our podcast will not be in my top five. However, if I want to actually say the amount of time that I have listened to any one particular podcast, it will always be ours because that's the amount of time I spend you know doing the proofs and doing notes and things. and I understand Murderbot's vibe.
00:44:06
Speaker
I'll never do this because editing already takes so long, but I would love at some point to make a super cut. of all of the things that I cut out of an episode that aren't talking. So just us saying, um, uh, sneezing, chair squeaking, background noise, people walking by so much. Like that's the version of the episodes that I listen to are the ones that the content is great, but the audio is bad. And so then occasionally when I do listen to a finished episode,
00:44:36
Speaker
Then I go, oh, this is really nice. This is so good. this is way different than the version that I listen to. That's why I'm glad that you do... the second round of edits so I'll do a rough cut of things and then send it to you for proof listening and then I'll edit more based on your notes I am so glad that you listen all the way through because at that point I'm so done with it I'm not going to listen straight through yeah I go start to finish and then usually I'll go back to the intro do my notes in the intro at the end and then usually like back to the very yeah it's there's a process yeah but all that is to say we feel you Sekyuni we feel you so much
00:45:15
Speaker
And it also just has big, enormous feelings about the fact that everyone immediately dropped everything they were doing to help it execute its plan. Mm-hmm.
00:45:27
Speaker
I think kind of similarly to the rescue and network effect where all of the humans were planning the retrieval, but it was a sec unit that they were retrieving. This is the same thing, that everyone believes in it and is taking it seriously despite its own reservations about being emotionally compromised and shut down from before and saying, oh, nobody's going to trust me. i shouldn't even be security anymore. I can't do it. Everyone being like, no,
00:45:55
Speaker
Idiot, you're smart. And we are going to do this thing because we believe in you that much that we're going to put all of our resources behind it. That's a lot in a good way. But it does have to process that as well. Yeah.
00:46:07
Speaker
And my other quick little thing is. In this chapter specifically, we get a lot of mentions that Atacal 2 is way more sophisticated than it's letting on. Art notes this more than once. I think Sec Unit also kind of gets a sense. And again, it's never fully explained, but Atacal 2 is definitely very, very smart. And all of this would not be possible without its explicit assistance.
00:46:34
Speaker
But moving on to chapter 9. If Baris Estranza can livestream meetings, so can we. Leonid and some of her hench people arrive, and something is off.
00:46:45
Speaker
The thing that's off is that one of them is about to shoot her, and they do. Their sec unit shows up. Art drone scrambles to do five things at once. Iris is a badass and holds a gun to a guy's head.
00:46:57
Speaker
They get one of the hench people to shut down one of the BE sec units. Tariq coordinates with the colonists. There's radio silence from Atacal 2, which can't be good. There's a chaotic and dangerous escape. Atacal 2 comes back online and is here to help.
Chase Scenes in Text: Pacing and Clarity
00:47:13
Speaker
There's more big giant fighting.
00:47:16
Speaker
Sec unit weighs the merits of liberating the hostile sec units and buries the necessary files deep in their archives while they're disabled. And Secunit, Tariq, and Iris still have to figure out how to get out of there, but Secunit has a plan.
00:47:30
Speaker
This is a busy chapter. Truly. This is also actually the longest chapter in the book, I believe. And my my main note from this is chase scenes just don't work as smoothly in text.
00:47:43
Speaker
There is so much of this chapter that is an extended chase scene. And again, this is one of those scenarios where there's multiple people in multiple areas. Like, Rati's in the ship, and he's kind of flying the ship, but art Artbot pilot is also flying the ship.
00:48:00
Speaker
But Art Drone is on the ground and is also flying the ship because they're both Art at the same time. Tariq got dropped off from the ship and is running through to coordinate with the colonists.
00:48:12
Speaker
While Iris and Sec Unit and Art Drone, now bringing Leonid with them, are fighting their way through and trying to escape the Sec Units and the other BE members in a different direction. And I'm a very visual person.
00:48:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And I also have a ah close friend who has the thing where they can't form any images in their brain. Right? And I don't know how you could read this scene if you don't.
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah. I'm sure, you know, obviously there's ways to. But the only way I could keep track of this scene was to essentially create a cinematic moment in my brain.
00:48:53
Speaker
And then... kind of change the pacing as I'm reading the whole because there's like parts of it that are really fast and then there's you know parts of it where they're talking and they're slowed down and if you're listening to the audiobook that's all at one speed everything's right at the same speed which is why chase scenes are not it this is this is my point of chase scenes don't work as smoothly in text yeah yeah I see that I know I have, like, I'm bringing more criticism to this this one than I have to some of the other ones. And I want to make clear, I still really love this book.
00:49:27
Speaker
I think because this book is so long and so dense... We have to be picky about the things that we talk about on the podcast. We could just read every funny line and then that would be like reading the whole book. It has so much about it that's wonderful.
00:49:44
Speaker
But sometimes the criticisms are just more interesting to talk about. Right. We'll talk more about B after chapter 10 because I see your note on that. Okay, cool. I have a couple of things.
00:49:57
Speaker
A couple of notes for this chapter. So Iris holding a gun to that one guy's head. Pretty badass. Pretty awesome. I know that I've drawn a lot of parallels between her and Amina. And Amina did launch herself at Ross.
00:50:13
Speaker
in Network Effect, and that was awesome and cool. But I don't know that she would necessarily hold a gun to someone's head. This, I think, illustrates that Iris is not from the most naive human society in existence and really kind of shows her competence in the more gritty and violent side of the work that they do. Because we've seen her engage in the corporate power peeing. We've seen her be snappy and clever But this is an action.
00:50:46
Speaker
It's a promise of violence that really sets her apart from other characters in terms of what she is actually willing to do. okay And I respect it. It's awesome. I think it's a good character building moment for her. So A plus to Iris. Art is disappointed and also proud. And they're bantering while she has the gun to the guy's head. that's great.
00:51:07
Speaker
When... Atacall 2 comes back online, it immediately floods SecUnit with access to all of its cameras. And that reminded me of Art doing the same after it came back online from being resurrected, which I thought was very sweet. Nice little parallel.
00:51:25
Speaker
that's That's how you know SecUnit is in good with the system, when they just fully let it in. That's sweet. There was just a very funny part that I enjoyed and had a quote from.
00:51:39
Speaker
So during all of the big chaotic fighting, honestly, I have no idea what specifically is happening in this moment, but Sec Unit needs a distraction. I need you to distract them, I told Art Drone.
00:51:51
Speaker
It hailed them, them being Bear Shastranza, on the comm. The human pilot picked up immediately, which was his first mistake. He said, we have your group locked down in our negotiating surrender. Set your shuttle down.
00:52:02
Speaker
I'm not with them, Art Drone replied. It was using a human voice, the same vaguely menacing one it used to speak on the feed. You'll have to negotiate your surrender to me separately. Which is just, just incredible. And they're like, wait, no, we're not surrendering to you. You're surrendering to us. It's like, oh, and and no, no, no.
00:52:19
Speaker
You're surrendering to me. You do not realize the can of whoop-ass that you have just cracked open. In that first chapter, or chapter six, Murderbot calls out the fact that Art Drone shares...
00:52:33
Speaker
art prime's propensity for violence and propensity to just what's what's the line it's something about hit them before they uh know they're in a fight i have no sense of proportional response yeah art has no chill art has zero fucking chill and that's kind of what makes it uh that's what makes it art i guess that's the a part yeah I also really enjoyed everyone just constantly telling Lainey to go fuck herself.
00:53:07
Speaker
She's there and they're helping her because they realize that she needs their assistance and they're good people. But she'll complain or whine or say something. and They'll just be like, go fuck yourself. Shut the fuck up. Stop talking. We hate you.
00:53:20
Speaker
We're saving your life. But that doesn't mean we like you. and that was also very fun. This is another fun piece is is the fact that Iris and and Tariq and Murtaba and Art They all understand Leonid fundamentally in a way that Leonid can't understand them.
00:53:41
Speaker
Leonid is still fundamentally seeing this as transactional because that's how yeah every single interaction in her life is. Whereas every everyone else there is like, well, we have to get her out because we have to get her out.
00:53:56
Speaker
That's kind of all there is to it. And yeah, there's definitely information that they can get from her. There's there's ulterior motives. But the primary motive in their minds is saving Leonid.
00:54:11
Speaker
The primary motive in Leonid's mind is some sort of transaction. isn it Are we ready for chapter 10? Hell yeah. So... Our crew heads toward the cargo chamber, which is apparently where they're going, and we get some information on the rebellion that's taking place within Barish Estranza.
00:54:31
Speaker
It's about corporate bonuses, because of course it is. They reach the blackout zone, and the vehicle that they are expecting to see there is gone. Uh-oh. Our crew has no choice but to wait for the shuttle to arrive and try to sneak around more hostile sec units, which Murderbot fights and takes out with the help of the shuttle crew and its final drones.
00:54:50
Speaker
Then there's another sec unit, one of the ones that Murderbot gave the governor module code to. This other sec unit tells the crew that BE is two minutes out and they have to get the hell out of there.
00:55:04
Speaker
And they do, towing the badly damaged arched drone. The bonuses piece was interesting to me. Yes, we do. The corporate takeover of all of this was very strange. And there's more in the next chapter.
00:55:20
Speaker
We know corporations are their own nations to an extent. and so
00:55:31
Speaker
And we know that people kill to get ahead in some of these corporations. Yeah. But the idea of it being for, you know, a bonus is, was interesting to me, especially when we got the line in the previous chapter where one of them says, you know what they'll do to us if we go back without this.
00:55:54
Speaker
isn And that prompted... a question that I had that I wanted to give to you as like a little thought exercise is what do we think those bonuses were? Because I don't know necessarily that they were money. It was probably something like life-saving medical treatment or being allowed to see your family for 12 hours.
00:56:21
Speaker
Like whatever constitutes this bonus was probably something horrific. I think that's an option. The other option is that it's money. Because in a corporatocracy, everything costs money.
00:56:35
Speaker
True, true, true. So, you know, being able to get the life-saving medical treatment costs. Being able to see your family. Like, you have to pay to see your family. I immediately thought about the fact that they're in, like, private prison corporations.
00:56:50
Speaker
They charge you to read. Right. Or they charge you, you know, five cents a minute to call your family. Or something horrific and ridiculous.
00:57:04
Speaker
That's... So yeah, it it could go either way. It could go with the, like, more literal, yes, you know, your your bonus is being allowed to do something essential to being human.
00:57:20
Speaker
Or your bonus is money... that will allow you to do something essential to being human because existence in these corporatocracies has a very literal cost.
00:57:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's actually all I've got for the chapter. um by other thoughts on this were fairly brief and they're both kind of along the same lines, which is just our humans and crew showing care for sec unit and for art drone people.
00:57:50
Speaker
Like Iris insisting on fixing Secunit's environmental suit, even though it doesn't technically need it. It's saying, you know, I'm fine. I'll be okay for a few minutes in a damaged environmental suit. And Iris not accepting that and insisting that they stop and take the time to make sure it has what it needs.
00:58:07
Speaker
They're all getting out well. sec unit stays behind and there's a little line iris said right let's go sec unit will wait for you up top i know they will which is why i'm willing to die to get them up there because it knows that they will wait for it it knows that they would sacrifice themselves for it so it's willing to sacrifice themselves for that best so it's willing to sacrifice itself for them ah chef's kiss and then caring for art's damaged drone just like we've shown care for sec unit throughout all of these books and that it's not just a piece of equipment it's a piece of perry and iris has a lot more intense feelings about that later but you know just refusing to treat it like a tool even when you have this much less human iteration of it because sec unit at least
00:59:04
Speaker
is person-shaped it has some organic parts and mickey was a human form bot but i think this is the first example of a bot bot being shown genuine love and care from a place of being in an equal-ish relationship as opposed to back in what was it fugitive telemetry was that the one with all the bots yes Yeah, so as opposed to fusion inflammatory, we were talking about the power dynamic between humans and bots, and the bots basically being like pats and whatever. In this case, that is not the same, and it's all good, tasty, tasty stuff.
Emotional Impact of Art Drone: Identity and Loss
00:59:44
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It takes... think it's and it's not until Chapter 11 that we have the transfer and the upload of Art Drone back to Art Prime.
00:59:55
Speaker
Do we want to do Chapter 11? Yeah. In a moment. Yeah. This, again, is another very cinematic chapter, particularly with like finding the old pseudo-proto-hopper thing and escaping through the tunnels. It's it's very Star Wars.
01:00:19
Speaker
It's very, very Star Wars. Very Mass Effect-y. I'll have to take your word for because I've never seen Star Wars.
01:00:27
Speaker
But I can see the vision. yeah Again, I had to like, in my mind's eye, map this out to figure out where the fuck everybody was this whole time. Because now Tariq meets up with them.
01:00:41
Speaker
it's It's a whole mess. i I don't know because i I've only like skimmed the text of this one. I was doing all of my notes ah off of audio for this one.
01:00:53
Speaker
I don't know if like, if I could, if I was reading this, I don't know if I would have gotten it easier. Maybe. Yeah, I did both. I listened and I read. And I didn't feel like there was a big difference. But that may just be me.
01:01:09
Speaker
Fair. Chapter 11? Chapter 11. The gang zooms out of the construction access tunnel in this aforementioned vehicle. Ratti is ready and willing to rescue them. Everyone loads up on the shuttle and they blast a BE shuttle on their way out. It's very exciting. They get out of the blackout zone and...
01:01:30
Speaker
pick up on a fight slash panic attack on the comms from the other bearish stransa ship leonide gets on the comm to order them to stand down sec unit and iris have enormous feelings and art hints at some beef with another ship see also during this chapter is where we finally we have art drone finally fail because it was you know heavily damaged in the last fight but that That enormous feelings talk between Murderbot and Iris about Art Drone was really interesting to me.
01:02:07
Speaker
Yeah. The parallels between ah Perry's kind of indifference about this one partition, Art Drones sort of last, like last things that it says, like before it fails, it manages to upload itself and everything that happened in the blackout zone back to Art Prime.
01:02:28
Speaker
So all of those memories get now meshed synthesized, synced into the Art Prime iteration. And so Art Prime and Art Drone are the same being.
01:02:45
Speaker
But for a period of time, they were separate. They were their own entities for a period of time. And it's not until they come back together that they become the same. That said, if Art Drone had not completed the handoff had not managed to upload its memories, you didn't lose Perry.
01:03:08
Speaker
You lost 24 hours of a day with Perry, which is weird because your friend is still there, but your friend has no memory of the last 24 hours that you just spent with them.
01:03:22
Speaker
And the sort of nonchalance with how Perry treats that compared to Murderbot and Iris's feelings about it.
01:03:35
Speaker
was very reminded me of the piece in is it a network effect where murder bot gets so heavily injured and defaults to its buffer piece of this unit is badly damaged and it's recommended that you discard it and is it a mina or oversay who you know says shut up we're not leaving you yeah And there isn't another murder bot.
01:04:04
Speaker
So that's a little bit different. But, know, and i Iris calls out kind of the weirdness of this, of knowing that her sibling is still there, is still alive.
01:04:18
Speaker
i I don't have the quote, but it just of knowing that, you know, her sibling is still there and still alive and is still itself. Because as a reminder, Iris and Perry are siblings in all the ways that actually matter.
01:04:34
Speaker
Yes. you know And Iris doesn't want to see any piece of Perry hurt to the extent that it can be hurt you know as a non-physical entity and feels anxiety about art drone, even knowing that art drone not existing doesn't mean that Perry's gone. And even we've seen, you know, even Perry being deleted doesn't mean that Perry's gone.
01:05:04
Speaker
Yeah. Which is very strange, but it doesn't mean that there's not grief over thee the moment of loss.
01:05:14
Speaker
And I think that might just be something that art is not able to understand. Because it doesn't have human neural tissue. It doesn't experience its emotions the same way, like we talked about earlier. That...
01:05:27
Speaker
That intensity and that realness of those feelings, it's just not something that it can feel because of how it's built, how it is. But luckily, Iris and SecUnit have each other. And after this whole confession where she's saying, I know that I shouldn't get worked up about this, but I do. And I'm just glad that it's okay.
01:05:49
Speaker
I know, I said. And I did know. And now I was having an emotion, like a big, overwhelming emotion. It felt bad, but good. a weird combination of happy and sad and relieved, like something had been stuck and it wasn't stuck anymore.
01:06:02
Speaker
Cathartic, okay? This fits the definition of cathartic. And then it ruminates a little bit. Don't just sit there, Art said to me and Iris as it brought the shuttle into its docking module. Console each other.
01:06:13
Speaker
i said, you fuck off at the same time as Iris said. Oh, shut it, Perry. And that felt even better. they're saying okay now hug now console each other over my death yeah come on weep for me oh also also in in uh 11 in in this chapter they get away from the bearish astranza shuttle by hitting it with a pathfinder isn' by booping it
01:06:44
Speaker
With a Pathfinder. And I just love the way that Sec Unit describes these things. We have we have booped. We have blorped.
01:06:56
Speaker
We have borked. I love a B word. A B and a round vowel. And how it's just presented without comment. Anyway, get booped, motherfucker.
01:07:09
Speaker
Chapter 12. Chapter 12. Art hates the other university ship who has arrived on the scene. Holism. And SecUnit doesn't get why. But hey, it's helping get colonists off the planet.
01:07:22
Speaker
BE is forced to acknowledge the totally real planetary charter and doesn't try that hard to force any of the colonists into contracts. Most of the colonists will be leaving for other, less infected planets, but the Separatists are interested in the idea of making the planet into a research station for alien contamination, which requires building some infrastructure.
01:07:44
Speaker
Holism really wants to talk to somebody about infrastructure, but Art is too possessive of Murderbot to let Holism get anywhere near it. But luckily for it, Three loves educational stuff, So Murderbot connects them on the feed.
01:07:59
Speaker
Murderbot is slowly approaching being ready for trauma treatment. And I wanted to just read the last couple of lines. Do we want to close out with the last lines in a little bit after our discussion of the emotions here? Yeah, let's I'll save the last lines for after the emotions. But there's.
01:08:20
Speaker
It's nice. It is. The emotions are art's possessiveness and art's offering Murderbot to go with it on its next mission. You know, kind of like bringing your significant other home to your family for the break between work seasons to see if you all get along before you all get really serious.
01:08:41
Speaker
um To quote Amina from the last book. Art being possessive over Murderbot is in interesting it's an interesting juxtaposition when you think about how Murderbot reacted when Art was talking to Amina with the possessiveness, with the don't talk to my human.
01:09:01
Speaker
And now Murderbot is telling Holism, don't talk to my sec unit. Yeah. That also reminds me of the parallel at some point in either this book or the one before because they kind of melt together in my mind.
01:09:13
Speaker
Murderbot remarks on Iris being Art's Rothy. And that explains why Rothy's just not allowed out of the shuttle this entire book.
01:09:24
Speaker
Saying, no, you stay there. You be safe. You are not allowed out of that fucking shuttle. And it didn't even occur to me that there that was the reason why until I put those two things together and going, oh, we just we need to keep him safe. he's He's our guy. And also Iris actually is experienced, whereas Rati has on multiple occasions almost gotten himself killed doing something incredibly stupid.
01:09:49
Speaker
And yet he's coming along on these missions. I mean, are you going to say no to him? Look at his face. He's so kind. Part of the problem was Tariq didn't say no to him.
01:10:02
Speaker
We'll talk about that in a minute. i do ah I do want to talk about that. Yeah. But yes, I do love, I love that parallel. Don't talk to my human. Don't talk to my sec unit.
01:10:12
Speaker
Even as a relationship anarchist who's like, yeah, everybody to do whatever they want forever. I do. i am still a sucker for, for just a little bit of possessiveness in a dynamic going, oh, yes, you do care about each other. Make it messy.
01:10:27
Speaker
Give me drama in my book. Yeah. Not my personal preference, but is definitely kind of a fun moment. There's all kinds of things that are fun in fiction and not in real life.
01:10:39
Speaker
Yes. Yes, there are. But I'm just like, yes, give it to me. The other piece, I have to wonder, you know, How much of art-hating holism is because holism is just because their
Art and Holism: Metaphors and Relationships
01:10:55
Speaker
personalities clash? And how much of art-hating holism is because holism is bigger?
01:11:00
Speaker
Bigger, presumably more powerful, maybe smarter. It also is just completely unbothered. by art's hatred and that just makes art hate it even more. i had to google what holism means because since perihelion is a science word I assume that this one also is and I read the wikipedia article but I don't know if I could explain it well.
01:11:25
Speaker
Do you feel like you could explain it succinctly? I also had to get the Wikipedia article out to sort of get the vibe. But from the Wikipedia article, it's the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the the properties of their component parts.
01:11:42
Speaker
It's the the whole is greater than the sum of its parts thing, right? So one of the examples that's given is the atom, right?
01:11:53
Speaker
An atom is made up of electrons and protons and neutrons. But it is not simply electrons and protons and neutrons. An atom is itself a whole entire thing.
01:12:08
Speaker
You can reduce it down into these component parts. but the atom is its own piece. You can break a cell down into a nucleus and the mitochondria and the Golgi apparatus. And you can break a per the, one of the other examples is, ah is an individual's personality. You know, you can break somebody down into the times they're angry and the times they're sad and the times they're happy. And you know, what, what brings them joy and what are their favorite foods.
01:12:39
Speaker
But at the end of the day, it An atom is not just what happens when you put electrons and neutrons and protons together. A cell is not what happens just what happens when you put a nucleus and DNA and and you all of your various organelles crammed inside a cell membrane. A person is not just the pieces of their personality. it A person is not just their the little pieces of their backstory.
01:13:10
Speaker
They are all on their own something new. And something entirely different created from all of those little pieces.
01:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of a heady concept. It is. But I think you explained it well. Thank you. I had a feeling. Which makes it very amusing that its little backup ship is called Sumtotal. Which I think is very cute. That's a fun one. Because Sumtotal is just a piece of holism.
01:13:38
Speaker
But... bring them together anyway and there a very good this is also the chapter where it is martin who talks about the corporate system as a whole being in trouble so that i think bodes well for future books i love three and holism being I am sure BFFs forever. I want them to pair off and go on their own little journeys and have them show up two books from now and go, oh, hey, it's three in holism who have been going on their own other adventures. Maybe get a little short story about that. I just, I want it.
01:14:15
Speaker
You know for a fact that if that starts to go even remotely okay, that's going to, that's going to, bring up something in the pan system university of mihira and new tideland that whatever department creates these hyper intelligent nhps how you know if we establish that the only thing that really understands them is a construct know we've we've established perhaps that the ships don't get along with each other
01:14:47
Speaker
But if a ship and a construct work together, then they become greater than the sum of their parts. um How long until every new new ship gets their own emotional support construct?
01:15:05
Speaker
Like cheetahs with emotional support dogs in zoos. Exactly. Exactly. exactly Murderbot has a healthy a healthy little mental debate on whether or not it's going to travel with art on its next mission or whether it's going to go back to preservation.
01:15:26
Speaker
And it makes its decisions. I was ready to get out of this system. I was never going to like planets, and nothing had happened here to change that. And I had decided, for real this time, which ship I would be on when I left.
01:15:40
Speaker
Do you know where we're going next? I asked Art. And that's the end of the book. Mm-hmm. Where we're going next is apparently ah the family road trip from hell.
01:15:51
Speaker
According to Martha Wells. I have two other pieces I want to jump back to that we i initially had in my chapter six notes. Thing one was a line about Murderbot not wanting to watch anything new without art drone.
01:16:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. The ships have their emotional support constructs, um but the constructs have their emotional support hyper-intelligent NHPs. um And then I want to go back to Tariq and Rati. Yes. Oh my god. the whole time. More argue-cushions.
01:16:23
Speaker
The sexual argue-cushion. he And we don't get a resolution to that because, again, as we've noted, Murderbot doesn't give a shit. Yeah. we however do h even when i read this for the first time um it was like going through the first couple chapters like rati and tarik have something going on there's something happening there either they they have to fuck they have fucked they will fuck ah something's happening you brought that up in our in our chat uh when you started rereading this like
01:17:02
Speaker
do ratti and tarik fuck i don't remember and i was like well yeah but the point is ratti's pissed off at tarik because supposedly tarik and mateo are in some sort of relationship that may or may not be sexual in nature And i guess Tariq and Mateo are having some sort of relationship issue and Rati seems to be annoyed that basically he wasn't informed before potentially jumping in the middle of this.
01:17:42
Speaker
which is fair in their defense they do both talk about it at length because when we get the flashback to the argue cushion that is while rati and tarik are talking about what sekunit calls the thing going on between them where the first letter of each of those words is capitalized and they're having yet another conversation about this and then we flash back to the argument so at least afterwards they continue to talk about it which is good maybe they could have talked about it a little more beforehand but it is very funny and when Sekunit realizes in the flashback that the thing they're fighting about was asexual argue cushion it jumps back well it doesn't i don't know if it jumps or just says it retreats two meters it has to physically distance itself six feet from the idea of people talking about sex which is very good that is the the one security element it will not be involved in i hope tarik and ratti can work out their shit I hope we get ah more shit in the next, in in our family road trip from hell.
01:18:55
Speaker
I hope Tariq and Mateo can work out their shit, too. That would be lovely. Yeah. I hope the three of them can work out their shit. We can just have a massive cuddle pile. Oh, thank you. Oversei and Arata and Tariq and Rati and Mateo all cuddling in the argument lounge.
01:19:14
Speaker
Renamed to the Cuddle Lounge. I have nothing else for this book. Do you have anything else for this book? Yes. One major theme that we need to wrap up is the whole trauma treatment situation. So some members of our team are working on a trauma protocol for free sec units, and they want our sec unit to contribute to that, which makes
Murderbot's Trauma and Future Growth
01:19:41
Speaker
sense. And it basically goes, and no, I need to work out my own shit before I can help anyone else with their shit. Thank you, but no.
01:19:51
Speaker
And it decides that it's ready to at least start thinking about it. It has a little info packet from Art about the trauma treatment options. But it knows that that's what it needs, which is a big step. And realizing that there are actually people out there who can help it And that at some point it will have to begin that journey in earnest.
01:20:17
Speaker
And that's exciting that it's going to move forward with that. And I'm hoping that in the next book we will see it having already had a few sessions of the trauma treatment and see how it's doing.
01:20:33
Speaker
I'm very curious to see what a new to therapy... the sec unit is like because being new to therapy sucks um so it's gonna have a maybe a bit of a hard time i think but also i'm very excited i'm really interested to see who is administering the therapy because it can't be art is it a conflict of interest for art to do it yeah
01:21:03
Speaker
Okay, that's all I have. I'm tired. i love this book. It is definitely the easiest one to criticize. No, that doesn't mean it's not a good time. There's so much in it. These books are so wonderful. If you've gone through this whole series and not read any of these books, I would highly, highly, highly recommend you pick up All Systems Red. It's so short.
01:21:26
Speaker
It's so fun. We have barely touched on all of the extremely funny little moments and the sweet moments. You know, we could talk forever about these books. They are absolutely delightful.
01:21:37
Speaker
But if you truly do not want to read or listen to these stories, good news, you can watch them as a TV show, which will be our next...
01:21:50
Speaker
endeavor after this one before we move on to much much bigger things yes galactic sized um again we haven't once again we haven't fully decided how we're breaking it down we will be doing multiple episodes i'm inclined to do it's 10 episode the series is 10 episodes it is on apple tv we'll probably do two blocks of five i'm just gonna re-watch things and see if that's reasonable but if you are following along with the podcast
01:22:28
Speaker
you can expect to watch probably somewhere between three and five episodes for the next ah the next episode of the podcast that we will be discussing. So that's what's next for us.
01:22:43
Speaker
So far, just season one is out, which covers All Systems Red. It is obviously an adaptation. We'll talk about visual adaptations, story changes.
01:22:54
Speaker
Much like we haven't been going beat by beat through these books, we probably won't go beat by beat through the shows. Especially because each one of those episodes is like between 17 and 25 minutes.
01:23:08
Speaker
They're very, very short. Yeah, they're bite-sized. So...
Encouraging Listener Engagement
01:23:11
Speaker
so If we spend longer in a podcast talking about an episode than the episode runtime, we could.
01:23:20
Speaker
Don't test us. We definitely could. And we might. um But tune in next time for that. If you don't want to wait until we release our next episode, good news. As you may have noticed, if you just scroll down a little bit in your podcast feed, we have a lot of episodes out, both for Murderbot,
01:23:42
Speaker
and for Lord of the Rings, and for a few things that are neither of those. We have a really wonderful duology of episodes on Beowulf. e Highly, highly recommend those two. They're some of my personal favorite ones that we've ever done.
01:23:56
Speaker
If you are all caught up on the podcast, but you would still like to chat with us, you can do that at our social media. We are at fanappod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D, on all of our social medias.
01:24:11
Speaker
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01:24:28
Speaker
The follower count is helpful. It at least gets our link tree in front of maybe more people because of the algorithm. I don't know. However, if you want a response, if you have something you need to put in front of our eyeballs or in front of our ears, you can send us an email at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com.
01:24:48
Speaker
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01:25:00
Speaker
Subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. If you are listening to this on not your preferred podcast platform, check and see if we're on your preferred pa podcast platform.
01:25:12
Speaker
Pods, past you know what? it's Say that five times fast. Preferred podcast platform. That's how we warm up before every episode. Clearly I didn't do my warmups this time.
01:25:22
Speaker
<unk> pis pisk put pesk for but If you like what you've ah read along with, listened along with, you can leave us a five-star review on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. Leave us a comment. Leave us a written review. Let us know what you're thinking.
01:25:42
Speaker
We love to hear from listeners whenever we can. And until next time, we don't do that kind of snappy sign-off.
01:25:52
Speaker
See you next time. Bye. The Phantom Apprentice is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music is composed and performed by James. You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Beiruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z.
01:26:09
Speaker
Our art is by Casey Turgeon. You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram. The content discussed is the property of the original copyright holders and is used here under fair use.