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Ep 2.10- There Is No Protocol For This
15 Plays14 days ago
Ryn and Sam finish out Network Effect and boy howdy is Murderbot having a Bad Time! And so are the other SecUnits. Wait, other SecUnits? We have commentary on such topics as naming conventions, queer generations, suspension bondage, ART's total and complete lack of chill, and the ethics of murdering your digital baby. Is it murder if the digital baby was essentially a bomb in the first place?
Covers chapters 14-end of The Murderbot Diaries: Network Effect by Martha Wells (2020)
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Transcript
Exploring Fatigue and Medication Side Effects
00:00:00
Speaker
Same. I was thinking, why am I so tired? Why am I yawning? Could it be the very long and difficult pole class that I did this morning? Surely not. could it potentially yeah Could it potentially have something to do with you getting up early every single weekend for the last like month to go do athletic shit?
00:00:20
Speaker
Maybe.
00:00:22
Speaker
But I had an epiphany that I feel like one of the running bits that we have established, it's not really a bit, one of our running themes, is talking about the various unexpected side effects of medications.
00:00:37
Speaker
So here's another one for you, gang. Certain medications, especially in combination, can make you much more prone to bruising, which I decided to look into after I had a bruise the size of my hand and the color. If you've ever had one of those purple carrots where you slice it and it's yellow on the inside and purple on the outside, was kind of like that.
Humorous Pole Class Challenges
00:01:00
Speaker
and was really gorgeous, King. And you know that I've got the hooks in me because I saw that and was thinking, how can I justify still going to class tomorrow with this?
00:01:12
Speaker
I can work around this, right? just I just won't do anything that uses the knee pit, which turns out to be a very important part of the body for pole. I also learned to move that everyone should Google if you are not in public.
00:01:27
Speaker
ah It has two names. It can either be called the Hello Boys or Hello Sailor. And the name combined with the image is so good because it's like, you know what?
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's direct. Yeah. And it's very hard.
00:01:49
Speaker
As are, I'm sure, the sailors.
Exhaustion from Sports Activities
00:01:52
Speaker
a Thank you. ah Well, my exhaustion is almost certainly due to my week in general and then ending it yesterday with biking a longer distance to a new gym.
00:02:12
Speaker
going rock climbing for two hours then biking home. And didn't you say that this gym is definitely set harder than the one that you usually go to? Without a doubt, yeah. The one I've been going to has a lot more slab roots, which slab is when it's it's tilted in towards the wall a little bit.
00:02:33
Speaker
h So you're on like, it's it's still basically 90 degrees, but it is just a very, very slight incline. um So you're sort of leaning in, which means like a lot more like technical footwork.
00:02:46
Speaker
mm-hmm those are kind of fun I feel less like I'm going to fall however the downside is when I fall I'm going to slide into something most likely and that's gonna hurt so wait is it leaning in as in towards the floor or away from the floor like you're climbing up an incline or it's inclined and you're climbing up like this way You're like climbing up an incline. So like you're so like you yourself are leaning in towards the wall.
Climbing Challenges and Comparisons
00:03:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:18
Speaker
I was imagining the reverse. I think that's because when I see videos of people doing cool tricks, it's on the more steep upside down ones. Yeah. On the, on the overhangs, which see, that is what this other gym that I went to last night, it has a lot more of.
00:03:35
Speaker
Which is a different kind of challenge. I think it's a challenge that requires a whole lot more upper body strength. Because you're just like, there is nowhere to go. mean, you need a lot of lower body strength too, because that actually honestly keeps you in place.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah, but you need ah so much upper body strength in one arm at a time because whenever you reposition your other hand, like nothing's just holding you there. And your center of gravity is like around your hips. Like it for most everyone, that's pretty much where it is.
00:04:10
Speaker
And so if you miss a foothold for whatever reason, oops, now you're just hanging like it's monkey bars. be then there's kind of nothing to do. Like there is no support from the wall.
00:04:25
Speaker
It's the everything is whatever you're clinging to. um And it always it never looks that bad until you're up there. And then you're like, I'm upside down now.
00:04:38
Speaker
I feel like pole is the opposite in that it is extremely difficult, but a lot of things look like they use different body parts than they actually do. And it's mostly legs and core stuff, which for me is very easy because I have very strong legs.
00:04:54
Speaker
But then you also have the benefit of like, there are so many tricks where it's also basically impossible to fall because of physics and the way that you're
Podcast Introduction and Host Backgrounds
00:05:04
Speaker
contorted. You could completely let go and still not go anywhere because you're just stuck.
00:05:08
Speaker
So the idea of actually really being able to fall, you're very brave. I don't think I'm trying that anytime soon. and I will eventually, probably. I don't think it'll be long before I get in a climbing gym somewhere. But for now, I'm good with my safe, not very high off the ground activities.
00:05:26
Speaker
You know actually also has a whole scene in this section? Suspended in midair. no I don't think there are any waivers that would cover the things that Murderbot experiences in this situation.
00:05:42
Speaker
Although I'm sure company waivers are horrible. Terms and conditions. Oh my god. No, I'm sure the bond companies are an absolute nightmare. it's It's that whole piece, what's what's it, from Fugitive Telemetry, where Murderbot talks about how when they're reading the the people in custody, their rights, it's pretty sure that it's more rights than somebody in an on corporate polity who hadn't been arrested would have.
00:06:10
Speaker
Or in a corporate polity would have. and i You know what I mean. Yes.
00:06:31
Speaker
Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Fandom Apprentice. My name is Rin. I'm one of your hosts. i grew up with a lot of sci-fi and fantasy and realized as I was making a joke going through our notes this time that i grew up with those but not with popular culture at all.
00:07:00
Speaker
so yeah yeah so you know all the like nickelodeon shows or any of that was from our childhood like i think i've seen a grand total of like four episodes of spongebob in my life whereas i'm sam i'm the other one hello I will
Nerdy Humor and Nature's Anger Theme
00:07:20
Speaker
occasionally reference things. And I was a pretty sheltered kid. There was a lot that I was not allowed to watch, but that I would still find ways to watch anyway. And I will occasionally reference things to you and they just will not land at all.
00:07:34
Speaker
Which is not is payback for when I reference random pieces of of nerd media and it just doesn't hit. Well, I think my presence here on this podcast proves that I am willing to learn.
00:07:49
Speaker
So eventually, eventually more things will hit. And it's not like you're not a nerd. You're most certainly a fucking nerd.
Podcast Evolution and Current Focus
00:07:57
Speaker
just Just a different variety.
00:08:00
Speaker
So we are here because because nature is angry, apparently. In an existential sense.
00:08:11
Speaker
So we are here because... I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy as a child and have continued to seek out as much sci-fi and fantasy literature as I can in my adult life and inflict that on my friends so I have somebody to yell about it with.
00:08:28
Speaker
Sam has been a willing inflictee for many years.
00:08:36
Speaker
What a fascinating combination of words. I like it. let's Let's roll with it.
00:08:44
Speaker
As part of that, we spent two years going through of the Rings, chapter by chapter, step by step, page by page, line by line, reading as much gay shit into it as we possibly could. And here we are in our mini season.
00:08:56
Speaker
We say mini season because this one just won't last two years. On Murderbot. ah So we are going through the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. We are in our last episode of Network Effect. This will cover chapters 14 through 20, which is basically the back half of the book.
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot. It is a lot. So I guess let's get into it. so where we left off last time, I forget. I started that really confidently.
00:09:30
Speaker
We go from right the like end of helpme.file. Here's the code to disable your governor module. Okay, yes. Where we go like, I'm sorry, the fuck?
00:09:43
Speaker
And then, hello, Murderbot 2.0. Yes, so we have been left with that bomb drop, and we open chapter 14 with a POV shift to Murderbot 2.0, which is our little killware baby that Art and SecUnit have created.
00:10:02
Speaker
It has a little kind of metaphorical cubby inside of art storage. And they gave it some media, much in the same way that you would give like a turtle a few pieces of lettuce in its enclosure.
00:10:14
Speaker
Art makes sure it understands the mission, which is to get in, find Art's crew, get out. then sends it to the Bearish Estranza Explorer. It gets some eyes on some but not all of Art's humans and another sec unit on board the ship.
00:10:29
Speaker
Murderbot is very direct in talking to it, and it's surprisingly helpful. Turns out the Targets fucked up trying to install more alien shit on the Explorer, so they are no longer wormhole capable, trapped in this area, and there's some internal strife among them.
00:10:45
Speaker
Murderbot sends the sec unit on board, helpme.file. The sec unit on board, we learn, is named sec unit 3. Or it refers to itself as sec unit 3.
00:10:57
Speaker
Sec unit 1 was destroyed in the boarding attempt. Sec unit 2 was the dead one that we found on the station. And now sec unit 3 is here.
00:11:10
Speaker
And like, okay. Okay. This is 100% in line with how sec units have been portrayed up to now and how they are referred to and how they refer to each other. But also, Martha, 1.0, 2.0, and 3. That has to have been but has to have been on purpose.
00:11:27
Speaker
Uh-huh. I have thoughts. That's about the parallels and connections between all of them for the end. Yeah. Amazing. I love that 2.0 is and isn't the same being as original Murderbot.
00:11:41
Speaker
And we can tell. Yeah. Like, right it doesn't have any of the organic parts, any of the organic neural tissue, but it is still the same personality, the same kind of sense of humor.
00:11:56
Speaker
I wish that I had analyzed more closely to see what it is that specifically helps indicate to us that it is its own separate being, because I do very much get that sense that it's not an exact car copy of Sekunet.
00:12:10
Speaker
I think it's it's honestly got a little more of Art's just like flippant fuck you attitude. Mm-hmm. Whereas, you know, Sec Unit is is very flippant and fuck you about most things, but it keeps a lot of that internal.
00:12:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But for 2.0, internal and external are the same thing. Ooh, yeah, that's a really good point. And so they're they're kind of like, it because it doesn't have a body, you know, anytime it's interacting, that's both internal and external.
00:12:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And so all that all that flippantness that's in inside SecUnit and that art projects out just normally is is just out. It truly is art and SecUnit's baby. Yeah, and we had talked a couple episodes about this internal, external space that art and Sec exist in together and those boundaries and the layers of their relationship. And now they have created...
00:13:15
Speaker
another being that is the only other being that can really fully inhabit that space where their relationship exists because it's the product of their relationship because it's their baby how's it feel sec unit remember what you said about not making children to argue with you i know we brought it up last time but this one we just get to see 2.0 If it had a physical form, its physical form would just be a middle finger.
00:13:41
Speaker
Honestly, that's probably like its profile image in the feed. It's really good, actually.
00:13:49
Speaker
The first couple times I read this book, this is really where I started to struggle because it just keeps getting more complicated. Yeah. Because 2.0 is still so similar 1.0.
00:14:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:14:04
Speaker
And yet it's not. Yeah. And again, it's talking about like putting things certain places, but but it's all in the feed. It's all in code. And we talked about the the issues with distinguishing between like comms and control systems. And so not only we do we have three sec units.
00:14:24
Speaker
two of whom are offshoots of the same being, one of whom exists only in a digital space. We also have like target contact, target control system, target control, target central, central control, central.
00:14:40
Speaker
Various other targets and hostiles. And every so often Martha Wells' is naming protocol here just gets to be a little bit difficult to follow.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, I understand the logic of having things follow a format with slight variations. But especially when we get into target control system, target contact, central, all that, I had a very hard time sorting out who is who and what is what. And we can talk about that more when we get to the later chapters where that becomes more explicit.
00:15:14
Speaker
But did you have anything else for chapter 15 chapter 14, excuse me Chapter 14 ends. We attempt to free Sec Unit 3 and the chapter ends on another cliffhanger.
00:15:25
Speaker
And we're back to original Murderbot and company and they're all down on the planet now. Mm-hmm. So, with yeah, ah we have 1.0, Oversay, Tiago, exploring the planet's structures. There's some creepy abandoned spaces. There's an agriculture bot, which sounds fucking terrifying.
00:15:47
Speaker
It's supposedly the least dangerous type of bot, but has these long, pointy, spindly arms and creepiness that definitely will not i come back later in any negative way. Definitely not Chekhov's ag bot. Yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker
Things aren't adding up. The space that they're seeing doesn't resemble the original colony plans. Maybe it's that compulsive building phenomenon we were talking about, maybe not. They find where all of the people are. There is a standoff between two different groups of targets and seeing them in this context, it's much more obvious that they are all modified humans, that they're not themselves aliens.
00:16:26
Speaker
they have at least two factions. We find Iris. She clocks Murderbot pretty much right away and saying, oh, you're Perry's sec unit. Okay. And it proves that it's not working with the bad guys by telling Iris and company what ART stands for.
00:16:42
Speaker
Then everything goes to shit, ending with a forced catastrophic shutdown. Another cliffhanger. Every chapter from here on out is going to end with a cliffhanger until we end the book.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah. A couple of things I noticed from this chapter. One, Tiago, the first time Tiago speaks, Murderbot's immediate reaction is, oh, fuck you. What now? And then Tiago's done something helpful and Murderbot is like, I guess I should be fucking nicer, maybe.
00:17:10
Speaker
god damn it. I'll think about it. shouldn't assume the worst, but also... I assume the worst. Yeah. And then his description of the ag bot standing up.
00:17:23
Speaker
It's a good thing I don't have a full human digestive system because I was so startled something might have popped out of it involuntarily. Murderbot only was stopped from shitting itself because it doesn't have a shitter.
00:17:38
Speaker
It's like i have no mouth but I must scream. The lot of structures that may or may not be pre-CR may or may not be constructed by the pre-CR colonists in conjunction with the Adamantine colonists.
00:17:56
Speaker
One of the notes was manufactured stone. And I couldn't tell if that's like concrete or if that's like some kind of like printed stonework.
00:18:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I was imagining kind of slabs of concrete, but the printed stonework angle is much more interesting. And I feel like that fits better into the weirdness of the compulsive building that it would be strangely ornamental.
00:18:25
Speaker
i See, I was sort of thinking, like, how does one manufacture stone? hmm. You know, you have like, if you go to Disney or a theme park, you have the like fake stone that's actually plastic and just carved to look like stone.
00:18:40
Speaker
You have concrete. You have carved stone slabs. Or, you know, thinking about what might happen in a universe where you essentially have replicators. Mm-hmm.
00:18:59
Speaker
Can you create and put together all of the elements that are in a rock and just kind of spit those out of a 3D printer? And so it's rock, but not like natural rock.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's possible. There was really interesting little bit about genetically modified plants in this world that basically humans have figured out how to use plants to synthesize all different kinds of chemicals, which I think is really cool.
00:19:28
Speaker
So I don't think it's that much of a leap to say that there's a way to 3D print some rocks. Right. We also note in the two sides that the weird gray modifications appear to be some sort of progressive condition.
00:19:44
Speaker
And it's not a fight between like more modified and less modified colonists because there's colonists on both sides that seem to be modified or unmodified to certain extents.
00:19:56
Speaker
Art's crew, it seems like, are they trying to get into the pod shaft, the drop pod shaft? Yes, because i think what is implied or explained is that they were kind of wandering around, happened upon this big fight, and then bolted for the shaft because there's projectile weapons. This is a very dangerous situation. And that was the only obvious exit.
00:20:19
Speaker
And they were going to claim it. So I was like, let's assume low Earth orbit. And then I was like, wait a minute. I looked up low Earth orbit and went, okay, that doesn't work.
00:20:31
Speaker
So for a drop pod to be connected like by a whole like shaft down to the surface... From in orbital station. On an Earth-sized planet, if we're just referring to Earth, for something to be in a stationary geosynchronous orbit, it sits at a height of roughly 22,000 miles above the Earth. Exactly miles above the equator,
00:20:58
Speaker
or three thirty five thousand seven hundred and eighty six kilometers So we could assume maybe that this planetary body is not quite as large as Earth, so you'd have a less high up orbit, but you still physically can't climb that far.
00:21:12
Speaker
Maybe it was more of a climbing up high enough to be out of danger maybe but so i i did think about this i did the math okay hit me hit me so so climbing is slower than walking just in general if you're doing any sort of and this would be you know i guess the ultimate of multi-pitch climbs but let's say you walked from miami florida to juno alaska according to google maps that is a distance 4 324 or kilometers
00:21:44
Speaker
which is 19.4% of the way to geosynchronous orbit. Oh no. That would take you, according to Google Maps again, 1,541 hours or 64.2 days nonstop.
00:21:59
Speaker
So slow that back a bit down for climbing without access to food or water or gear. The only potential option I could see is if there's like an access hatch, like a small little access hatch somewhere in like low Earth orbit.
00:22:12
Speaker
where they could potentially reach Perry, which is not a guarantee. But even then, most low-orbit objects, like the ISS or a lot of satellites, are between 250 and 500 miles, or 400 and 800 kilometers up.
00:22:28
Speaker
Which is not nearly as bad, but also still impossible to climb without supplies. The border between Earth and space is 62 miles, or 100 kilometers or 0.28% of the way to geosynchronous orbit.
00:22:45
Speaker
Now, what about gravity, though? Because as they, and we know that there are gravity wells in various places on the planet, could there be some floatiness that they can just kind of, or is that not really relevant in this case?
00:23:00
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure they could. I don't have the math on it. i I don't honestly know, like, how gravity would work inside the drop pod shaft.
00:23:13
Speaker
Mm-hmm. you know, if we assume that one can get all the way from the surface to the thingamabob, the space station, that's the technical term, in the drop pod shaft, is that via climbing?
00:23:30
Speaker
Is there like a like physical tether that drags it up and down? what What's the mechanism here? Also oxygen.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah. There's a Star Trek podcast that I listen to, and they have a one of their bits every time the away team goes down to a planet without doing any sort of research as to what the planet is.
00:23:54
Speaker
is Their first question is, is there air?
00:23:59
Speaker
and yeah, sci-fi, is there air? so Yeah, I understand that it's sort of a desperate situation, but also either Martha Wells did not think about how high a geosynchronous orbit is, which is entirely probable, or also there's just something else I'm missing somewhere in this.
00:24:23
Speaker
Some of that sci-fi hand-waving that we just don't need to worry about. But the other people we find, we find Iris, Arts Iris, who we know from our previous ah little short story report is Art's sister, basically.
00:24:38
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And I have a correction in that episode. I confused Iris and Amina and I attributed the relationship discussion stuff that Amina does to Iris.
00:24:49
Speaker
They, I feel like do have a lot in common and I want to see them interact. I don't remember if they do or how much they do in later books, but Iris is a fucking delight. I love her. Oh, she's great.
00:25:01
Speaker
We also find Seth, Cade, Tariq, and Mateo. And Seth is, according to Murderbot, Iris's parent. Which I love as just a gender neutral term.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah. And I love also that we're using he him for Seth too. Not that like non-binary people can't use gendered pronouns because case in point, me, I've been here the whole time.
00:25:27
Speaker
And also, i really enjoy fucking with gendered terminology and non-gendered terminology in one sentence. It's fun. It's a beautiful thing.
00:25:39
Speaker
But anyway, we find these people. Murderbot is controlling the Agbots while everyone breaks away and heads for the drop pod or the maintenance capsule. But the Agbot breaks out of Murderbot's control and attacks Seth.
00:25:51
Speaker
And then Iris runs back to help her parent. and attacks the bot, and then Murderbot gets Iris out, and then gets fucked up by the Agbot and shot by a bunch of targets, and we end on another fucking cliffhanger.
00:26:04
Speaker
Performance reliability, catastrophic drop. Forced shutdown. No restart. Anyway, chapter 16, back to 2.0. Wee! I have literally three sentences. This is a five-page chapter.
00:26:16
Speaker
There's a code battle. Sec Unit 3 disables its governor module. It tells the humans that Perihelion sent it and gets them to safety, and the ship blows up. And that's it. I have, like, a couple of fun notes, which was, I love that it's taunting target control system with, did it hurt when I fucking killed you?
00:26:37
Speaker
And it was a callback to earlier when Murderbot was saying that it hoped target control system was sentient enough to hurt when it killed it. So it's saying, I need to fucking know. And then target control system refers to it as a software ghost, the ghost of the machine. Mm-hmm.
00:26:53
Speaker
And then I love that the code bundles that 2.0 deploys are codebundle.lockitdown, codebundle.fuckthem, and codebundle.fuckthis2. And I love that 3 gets the humans away and on the shuttle, both Arts 3 crew and a few bearish Estranza people, and then 2.0 escapes the ship through target contacts and feed connection or something because target contact is on the surface talking to target control system on the ship and target and 2.0 uses that to escape the ship when it's destroyed
00:27:32
Speaker
And I just imagine it talks about it it falling away towards the planet. And I can just, this is just fully, the the image I got was it, you know, leaping out of the door of the exploding airplane, very roomy in K-pop Demon Hunters, but flipping the double bird up the whole time as this thing just explodes.
00:27:53
Speaker
I think that's something that Mira would do if it wasn't a kid's movie. The fact that none of those girls are allowed to say fuck is a tragedy. I'm glad that people of all ages can experience that movie, but Mira needs to be allowed to say fuck. She needs it so bad.
00:28:11
Speaker
and And listen, 2.0 needs to be allowed to taunt target control system with, you know, you know something about when you come for the crown that's so humbling, huh? I'm also imagining, you know how for festivals and stuff, they use drones with lights on them to make pictures and displays and stuff in the sky.
00:28:30
Speaker
All of the drones, just a giant middle finger. That's also very good. That's a brilliant point. Chapter 17. Yeah. yeah So chapter 17, we switch POVs back to three. If you haven't picked up on it yet, there's a lot of POV switching in these chapters. We'll just roll with it.
00:28:49
Speaker
It is doing its goddamn best to get the humans aboard Art and is very relieved to see Amina and Rati because they were in helpme.file. It is extremely scared of Art and confused because there is no protocol for any of this shit that's happening.
00:29:06
Speaker
three informs art that murderbot 1.0 is captured and in danger on the planet art intends to hold the colony hostage with a lot of missiles surprise crew until they give murderbot back three is trying to process that they're retrieving a client but the client is a sec unit and the humans are planning the retrievals okay what is the world coming to three has its freedom and it wants to help I love that line of Murderbot 2.0 asked me what I want.
00:29:35
Speaker
I want to help. Yeah. Three is the best sport. There has never been a better sport than three. Three has had its entire world rocked in the last like, you know, it had shit happening over the last few days.
00:29:53
Speaker
But that kind of that shit was unexpected, but kind of like within its mandate. Mm hmm. Right. You know, it had to stand down because of the governor module. Things are going to shit.
00:30:05
Speaker
It's probably not going to get out of this. It expects that. And then in the last 20 minutes, that's all been turned on its head. But not only has it all been turned on its head and it's gotten an opportunity to do something, its entire worldview has been shaken.
00:30:19
Speaker
And all of a sudden it's free. Yeah. And it's just the the phrase, whenever Three is talking, the phrase, there is not a protocol for this, gets repeated like every three lines.
00:30:30
Speaker
It is, it shares some of Murderbot's qualities, which makes sense because they're both sec units. It is very anxious. It is very scared. it is just trying not to make anyone mad. It seems much less angry than...
00:30:47
Speaker
sec unit did back at the beginning of all systems read and mostly just perplexed and nervous and wanting to do a good job just because it hasn't had any time to process and be angry about anything yet but it is none of the next events in the book would be possible without threes cooperation no Because art, as we've as we've noted before, art is really kind of an all or nothing type character.
00:31:18
Speaker
Art is a dragon. Yeah. You know, art does not do subtlety. No, it threatens to peel three's skin off and disassemble it piece by piece.
00:31:30
Speaker
Well, and it armed its Pathfinder drones with its little mapping drones and turned them into explosives. Which, when we had talked about Rapport back in the short stories episode, I had made the comparison that its relationship with Sec Unit and revealing of it was a rebellion in line with kind of getting a secret belly button piercing that you know your family's eventually going to find out about it. And, you know, then you reveal.
00:31:58
Speaker
The Pathfinders feels like everyone's adjusted to the belly button piercing. This is fine. This is normal teenage rebellion. And then Art takes its shirt off and reveals a full back tattoo. It's like, okay, you were good with this. Here's 32 armed Pathfinders.
00:32:14
Speaker
When did I do this? Don't worry about it. How do I know how to do this? Don't worry about it.
00:32:21
Speaker
I'm just playing toys. And I also love the exchange because, like you said, art is very single-minded and focused. And it is ready to just completely destroy the colony to get SecUnit back.
00:32:37
Speaker
And there's little exchange that Three is relating. Iris. Perry, you can't bomb the colony. Perihelion. You are incorrect, Iris. I can bomb the colony.
00:32:52
Speaker
No one is in control of art. It will do what it wants, up to and including massive violence, because it does bomb the colony. Not in this chapter, but later. It doesn't destroy it completely, but a little bit. A little bit of bombing is a treat.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah. I like the way, because this is the first time now we have 3's perspective, right? It was interesting to see the difference differences between original Murderbot and 2.0. 3 is very, very different.
00:33:26
Speaker
the The speech patterns are somewhat similar, but I really do think... When we read these books, you really can see Murderbot's speech patterns and murder and even just like the internal thought patterns changing over the course of the series.
00:33:45
Speaker
Three is back to these choppy sentences, identifying things with like name, colon, speech, text. Yeah. And, you know, that's very back to all systems read.
00:33:59
Speaker
That's very, very back to, yeah, the the freshly free murder bot. Yeah, it's trying to tag things and identify them. let me see if it's in this chapter or the next one.
00:34:11
Speaker
Is it in this chapter or the next one where it's very nervously going up to Art and saying, I know you want to bomb the colony, but I'm a security expert. I can also help. Please don't kill me.
00:34:25
Speaker
Is that in this? I think that's this one i yeah this one. Yeah. Yeah. So it is very, the word I was looking for is timid. Three is very timidly going up to art and just trying to do its fucking job and saying, listen, i know you're very big and strong and scary and I have no idea what's going on right now.
00:34:42
Speaker
And you could bomb the colony. You could absolutely, you are so free to bomb the colony. I love that for you. But also... I'm a security person.
00:34:53
Speaker
I know about security. This is literally my entire purpose, or it has been up until about 20 minutes ago. So if if you want, I could potentially point out some flaws in your plan.
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm sorry that I implied your plan had any flaws, but... We can maybe get Murtapot out. It's just, it's so hedging its bets so hard and conveying so much anxiety, just even in those little choppy, freshly minted sec unit sentences.
00:35:21
Speaker
and you just feel so bad for it. It's cute. We love you three. Anything else for 17? I feel like we're flying through this, but i I condensed these last couple of chapters into this section because they fly through each other.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah, my approach to getting ready for this one, because it is, again, seven chapters, which is a lot for us. I had a lot of very quick little summaries and then general thoughts at the end.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah. Sweet. So... eighteen yes eighteen back to one point zero murderbot is trying and failing to restart It finally gets somewhat functional and is extremely scared. I know everyone is scared in this book, but even for Murderbot, we are getting new heights of just absolute terror.
00:36:08
Speaker
It is being held... suspended in the air upside down and gets out by disconnecting its own wrist reattaching it getting itself free and realizing that it is at the original site of the alien remnant contamination so ground zero elephant's foot alien contaminant bad stuff it has slight mental breakdown And then gets in contact with 2.0.
00:36:35
Speaker
And 2.0 has altered its own directive, which it is not supposed to be able to do. But now it's here to help. Someone or something on the planet is sending out a distress call and Murderbot is the only one who might be able to see what's going on.
00:36:50
Speaker
And in the course of investigating that, they find target control system. here here What's target control system, Rin? ah Target control system?
00:37:03
Speaker
Get there in a moment. Okay. Because I want to start with just the way the chapter begins. Murderbot 1.0. Status. Not so great.
00:37:15
Speaker
I fucking love Murderbot. It's so good. Yeah. as far as like weird unexpected suspension bondage goes, this is definitely the worst.
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. not You don't want it to be unexpected. but no No, really not. i don't think there's any safety scissors on hand here if you're ripping your own hand off.
00:37:41
Speaker
Also, I didn't even realize on hand. because Because it's disgusting.
00:37:48
Speaker
Yeah. it's We're getting a little murder bot body horror here. Before we get major body horror with other things shortly. And yeah the contact with 2.0 is really interesting.
00:38:04
Speaker
With the alteration of its own directive, there's a, I don't have the line written down, but there's a light comparison with Mickey, I think. Oh, that yes. is um Wait, hang on.
00:38:16
Speaker
That is the next chapter. Okay. But there is a comparison to be made with Mickey here, with the way Mickey sacrifices itself at the end and refuses Donna Benna's protocol directive change.
00:38:34
Speaker
And so for 2.0 to do the same... I feel like Murderbot should not be surprised, but it is. And it also, because we know that 2.0 is doomed.
00:38:49
Speaker
This is why it was created. And you could also, and should also make the comparison that that is why Murderbot was created. And it managed to overcome that and still lead in...
00:38:59
Speaker
interesting life i think interesting is probably the best adjective but we know that 2.0 is doomed we know that it's going to die and so having this moment of it exercising its free will its sentience the beauty and mystery of this thing that art and sec unit have created and then knowing that it's going to be destroyed that fucking that hurts so much more than if it had just been a couple of funny lines of dialogue that then disappeared In adventures in living with your own killware cozied up inside your head, 2.0 had partitioned off a corner of my processing space.
00:39:36
Speaker
It would have worried me more if it wasn't in there watching episode 172 of Sanctuary Moon. Your own sentient living weapon is living inside your brain, sitting on the couch, like, fully sprawled out.
00:39:51
Speaker
And it needs to be watching Sanctuary Moon because much like how Murderbot uses the show to connect to its own personhood and its own identity, SecUnit is afraid that if 2.0 stops watching media, it might forget its directive and might just decide to kill SecUnit because it just waltzed in past its defenses, which it also should not be able to do.
00:40:17
Speaker
So now this dangerous weapon is living inside its brain. And so we have to keep it happy and let it watch all the media that it wants. here But together they go and they find the old like pre-CR central system hub in which they find a human body.
00:40:40
Speaker
And the human body is basically wrapped in some halfway between coral and fungal hyphae. Mm hmm. And, you know, the fungal hyphae are like spread out to all the ah central system nodes and control panels and things.
00:41:00
Speaker
It's created a pseudo-technological, pseudo-biological mycelial network. And what in the Last of Us shit is this?
00:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, it was very Gladys with all the chords, you know, the parallels, like you said, in the biological technological imagery are there. And it's so fucking creepy. Space horror. In case we forgot what kind of book we're in.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But target control system, it's revealed, is the mycelial connections between the alien hyphae, the like weird fungal coral connections...
00:41:42
Speaker
are that's the alien contaminants that's the alien remnant the human body and the old pre-cr central system all of that together is target control system which is so fucked And now it's just occurring to me now to draw comparison between target control system and 2.0 in that it's another synthesis of these very complicated and powerful forces.
00:42:12
Speaker
And we've seen it you know act aggressively and negatively it's our enemy in this story but also it's such an unlikely combination of things and has so much potential that destroying it is almost sad you have to do it but it's also just this kind of miracle combination of things that shouldn't work together but somehow do And the description of how it does that, we'll get that in chapter 19. So we want to pop over to chapter 19, do the summary, and then...
00:42:48
Speaker
discuss yeah one last quick thing for chapter 18 which is after murderbot gets itself free from the whole suspension bondage situation just to sort of add a little cherry of misery on top of this whole situation being abandoned on a planet plus locked up and forgotten with old equipment plus no feed access were my top three issues and it was a little overwhelming to have them happen all at once So just in addition to all of this horror, just imagine your top three personal fears, deepest rooted issues, all happening at the same time.
00:43:23
Speaker
But moving on, unless you had any other, moving on to chapter 19. A lot of rapid POV switching in this chapter. We start with Three, going down to the planet surface with Arata, Rati, Tiago, and Iris, and Art in an immaterial way.
00:43:39
Speaker
Art threatens the targets into agreeing to a meeting, and the humans are pretending that they're Art's hostages, stalling so Three can find... 1.0 switching back to 1.0 it's putting together what happened with target control system and figures out that it contaminated the humans not the other way around it's not something the humans or targets whatever built murderbot tries and fails to kill it 2.0 realizes that murderbot is contaminated and murderbot gets the central system's permission to purge and restart it to save the humans
00:44:17
Speaker
Murderbot realizes that the time has come for 2.0 to sacrifice itself and does not want to accept it. Murderbot destroys the box where 2.0 central and target control system have kind of isolated themselves.
00:44:30
Speaker
And then target contact, the which is what we're calling the body, jumps to its feet and attacks. There is then a quick check-in with Three and the humans, then back to 1.0.
00:44:43
Speaker
1.0 escapes the room, meets up with Three, who carries it to the shuttle. It meets up with Arada and the others and takes off. And target contact has been there at least since, at least since Adamantine, but I believe since the pre-CR colony?
00:44:58
Speaker
The timeline that I put together, which I will get into later, the only thing that makes sense to me is that it's been there a very long time. Secunit can't tell how long it's been because it's obviously alive. It's not decomposed. So it thinks maybe it's been here a month, maybe a year, maybe several years.
00:45:20
Speaker
I think it has been there much, much longer than that. I think this has been here a very long time. Yeah, this is I started to get a little bit confused with like central system, target contact, target control system here.
00:45:35
Speaker
But we learn that the alien remnant contaminated a human of some sort, forced it like a fucking cordyceps to bring it to central system, then combined with central system and spread out from there.
00:45:51
Speaker
And it sounds like, because the central system was the pre-CR like control system, system When the adamantine the colonists landed, it infected them as well.
00:46:04
Speaker
And it has to pass from human to tech to human. So it's it's like a parasite where different life cycle stages have to happen in different environments or different species. Mm-hmm.
00:46:16
Speaker
So like there are certain species of intestinal worms that like they lay their eggs in intestines, but the eggs can't hatch until they're excreted.
00:46:31
Speaker
And are out in the environment, yes. And so, you know, parasites or, you know, viruses, like things like that that can't reproduce without another, without the essentially the assistance of another species or another being.
00:46:48
Speaker
So, you know, this can't go from human to human. It can't go from system to system. It has to go from technological to biological to technological to biological. Which I guess really makes, that's and that's part of the problem I think with SecUnit, why it was like, wow, I think I'm i'm going to be immune, and then it absolutely wasn't. Yeah.
00:47:07
Speaker
It's double vulnerable. Yeah. Because it can just kind of keep jumping back and forth between its tech parts. And it's bio parts.
00:47:18
Speaker
Yeah. Which, hmm, fuck. But yeah, that's a lot to keep straight. And yeah, 1.0 eventually escapes with 3 and Oversay and Arata.
00:47:30
Speaker
And Art blows up target contact with a Pathfinder drone and has turned into a missile. Yay! think that'll do it. um Sec Unit tries to shoot at it with energy weapons and sees on the ground various scorch marks from all other kinds of weapons that other people have obviously tried. They are not the first ones to destroy this.
00:47:51
Speaker
But I think Art's approach probably doesn't. Hopefully. And if not, we can just place the planet under Interdict. Yeah. This was very, very... So I have never seen Alien, which I know is a knock on my nerd cred. I haven't seen it either, so... But I have seen Prometheus, which is an Alien prequel.
00:48:17
Speaker
And there were a lot of pieces of that this that reminded me of of Prometheus. This is clearly like an explorer went out, encountered something that they didn't understand, was negatively affected, and then brought that back to their people and was ultimately destroyed by that thing.
00:48:38
Speaker
you the The creature or whatever they picked up out in the world that thing used the explorer as a vehicle so it could get what it wanted, which was a whole colony of hosts.
00:48:56
Speaker
A weird, creepy, fucked up little hive mind. And I forget if it's in this chapter or the next they all kind of blend together. But when the humans are talking about and unpacking what's going on, it seems to be their conclusion that the target humans want aren't actually a hive of mind but target control system has convinced them that they are or has convinced at least some of them that they are which is somehow maybe not worse because then they still have some free will under that but is definitely a whole other layer of fucked up
00:49:33
Speaker
It's like you don't have to actually be a hive mind if you can just convince them that they're a hive mind. Like, what the fuck is that? Yeah, no, that's that's truly fucked up. The other piece that didn't really make sense is the negotiating team because the the target group sends a negotiating team to deal with...
00:49:51
Speaker
Tiago and Oversay. The negotiating team is apparently from the non-infected group. And they keep basically saying, like, the infected group doesn't represent us. That was their fault. That was their problem.
00:50:03
Speaker
But then they one of them is talking about the implants and the purpose of the implants. And the rest of the target group is like, I'm sorry, what the fuck? So I can't... i I'm wondering if it's like there's, you know, three or four of them from the non-infected group and one of them that came along from the infected group.
00:50:22
Speaker
A little cooperation there, possibly. Sort of, kind of? Maybe? maybe i don't know. Because it seems like one of them seems to have knowledge that the rest of them don't.
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah. But we don't really dig into that because... That's not our primary focus here. Yeah, the focus is on rescuing Sec Unit and the internal divides and politics of the colonists are not our focus right now.
00:50:50
Speaker
But the whole fight scene with Sec Unit realizing that the time has finally come for 2.0 to complete its mission and destroy itself...
00:51:03
Speaker
fucking heartbreaking this is the part where there's the explicit comparison to mickey in the text where sec unit is waffling and 2.0 is like grow the fuck up i'm gonna do this if you fuck this up i am going to be so angry i'll make art look nice 2.0 said and unlike mickey this is how i win
00:51:25
Speaker
The fact, I mean, I shouldn't be surprised because, again, 2.0 is a copy of Sec Unit. But pulling out the memory of Mickey to just bonk Sec Unit over the head with an emotional hammer, it it knows what will get past 1.0's defenses in more ways than one.
00:51:45
Speaker
Yeah. think both for just the emotional pushing its buttons angle, but also it's true. so It's a good point that it's meeting its end in a different way than Mickey did and saying, I know this feels similar and you might be stressed out about it, but this is not the same.
00:52:09
Speaker
And you have to let me make the choice that I have decided to make for the purpose I was created for.
00:52:15
Speaker
and then when they're all sequestered 2.0 gets them all in this little box that is then destroyable 1.0 is just looking at it and you know getting ready to smash it destroy it they're sleeping I told myself 2.0 and central wouldn't feel a thing it was too bad target control system wouldn't But we had talked at some point in one of the previous books about the semi-autonomous diggers and other things on whatever planet it was. Was that Milu?
00:52:49
Speaker
Maybe. Somewhere. i don't know. But talking about this tenderness that SecUnit feels for other machine intelligences, even if they're very simple... And talking about all of these systems as being sleeping and not wanting to disturb them.
00:53:05
Speaker
And so we already have that very soft emotional association with that phrase here. And now seeing it again in a much darker context of, they're sleeping, there they're not going to feel it, it'll be okay, I can do this.
00:53:20
Speaker
this is This is very... real world sad and depressing, but it's the thing that it makes me think of. Maybe we can put a content warning in the episode for pet death. But if you have ever had to put down a pet, um this is something that I've had to experience. I know a lot of other people have.
00:53:37
Speaker
It's two different medications that they give them. There's the first one that I forget. Now I'm going to have to fact check and see if it's right. But I believe there's one that stops their breathing and then one that stops their heart.
00:53:52
Speaker
So they are sort of sleeping comfortable before they like actually die. and so Sec Unit is experiencing this kind of two-stage process of like, I am having to make multiple decisions. I am choosing multiple times to continue ending this life or in these lives.
00:54:13
Speaker
And that's hard. And it fucks you up. And it's killing its baby. And also Central System, which... we only get the littlest glimpse of but central wants to protect the humans central agrees to work with murderbot because murderbot can help and so this was a nice friendly system that it doesn't want to kill but it has to that fucking sucks collateral damage chapter 20
00:54:44
Speaker
So after all that, Murderbot, barely functional, limps aboard Art. The humans are all putting pieces of backstory together. Prezox tells Art's crew that they know their secret and they won't tell anyone.
00:54:58
Speaker
Murderbot gets healed the slow and messy way to avoid scanning contamination. But Art makes it a little contained area to watch media in the feed, which is nice. Murderbot finds out that Art was ready to bomb the colony for it.
00:55:12
Speaker
Art invites it on a future mission. Murderbot talks through that with Amina, who thinks it's a good idea, but Mensa might not be thrilled, and it's certainly complicated. Murderbot and Three talk about what Three wants to do what with itself.
00:55:26
Speaker
Mensa comes on board, and I'm normal about it. She started therapy. Murderbot confesses it had its own little emotional collapse when it thought Art was dead. And then we end the book.
00:55:39
Speaker
Yeah. I do like the introduction between the Pan System University of Mahira and New Tideland crew and the Prezox crew of them like...
00:55:50
Speaker
carefully being like wait you're anti-capitalists we promise we're also anti-capitalists we fucking hate the corporates we also fucking hate the corporates we're not going to reveal your secrets we're also not going to reveal your secrets okay we're good okay here's everything about us ah very much in the Two queer people kind of sussing each other out and going like, oh, thank God. Okay.
00:56:18
Speaker
And I also love Art freaking out. I'm sure everyone has seen that very old Chris Fleming video. Company is coming about the mom who's cleaning. going We can't let them know we sit.
00:56:29
Speaker
As soon as Art learns that Mensa is coming aboard, it's yelling at Turi to put their clothes in the recycler. It's scrubbing down every surface of itself. It wants to be really nice to meet Sec Units mom.
00:56:42
Speaker
Sec Units mom slash queer platonic ah thing. Connections. like Yes. It's complicated. It's very complex. It's almost like it's difficult to put a label on some of these relationships.
00:56:58
Speaker
It's almost like queer people have always had ah relationships that defy classification. Hmm. And attempting to classify our relationships based on you know words that we have in the language or what our governments allow us to do will always be lacking at best and utterly and totally inadequate and incapable of managing anything nearing understanding at worst. Yeah.
00:57:33
Speaker
And it is played in a combination for a combination of laughs and seriousness with the conversation that it has with Amina. Art asked me to join its crew for a mission. Art, as usual, was listening, and this was my way of telling it what I was thinking.
00:57:46
Speaker
It was easier telling Amina for some reason, maybe because she had somehow managed to put herself in the middle of my and Art's quote-unquote relationship. Amina paused her feet and frowned. For how long?
00:57:58
Speaker
For the duration of the mission. But I had the feeling that Art meant for this to be the first step in a longer... association. Amina's forehead indicated suspicion. Just the one mission?
00:58:09
Speaker
Kind of like asking someone to come stay with your family for the break between work seasons to see if they all like each other before you get serious? And then... Best part of that whole interaction, neither Art nor SecUnit disagree.
00:58:23
Speaker
i think SecUnit even explicitly says, if not out loud, then in the narration, yeah, yeah, it is like that. Fine. I love the little piece of when SecUnit is being repaired, it having to deal with the fact that people care about it. Mm-hmm.
00:58:44
Speaker
I was glad I could pretend to be too overwhelmed by being reassembled to respond, because I kind of was overwhelmed. That was art, and my humans, and humans I had known for maybe five minutes, and a Barrage Estranza sec unit that two had randomly found, all cooperating to retrieve me.
00:59:01
Speaker
I'm going to stop talking for a while now. While it was having this combination of all of its worst fears happening at the same time, on the other side of the atmosphere, everyone was working together to save it.
00:59:14
Speaker
And that's really sweet. And I know you have a bunch more in your notes. I have like one other little thing and then we can jump into your... Well, let me see the end how much other... Oh, what there is kind of lot of stuff.
00:59:27
Speaker
But 1.0 and 3 have a fluid pumping device to fluid pumping device chat. That took me a second. Thank you. Oh, yeah.
00:59:40
Speaker
Okay. Where three is talking about it doesn't it's it's not really sure how to go about being a free three.
00:59:51
Speaker
I don't know what to do. Murderbot responds with because change is terrifying. Choices are terrifying. But having a thing in your head that kills you if you make a mistake is more terrifying.
01:00:06
Speaker
And this is what having an anxiety disorder is like. And finally getting treatment for an anxiety disorder is like. Right? When you're sort of, you're so convinced that everything that you do or that could possibly be done in proximity to you or anything of the sort is going to kill you.
01:00:28
Speaker
And then all of a sudden you're medicated or you're in therapy and things aren't terrifying around every corner. And it might not necessarily be like directly terrifying, but you still have that like,
01:00:42
Speaker
Walking on eggshells, pins and needles response to everything that happens around you. Yeah. And it's a conscious, like, slow unlearning, slow, like, slowly figuring out that, yeah, even though this is scary, at least I don't have the reaction that this is all going to actively hurt me.
01:01:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I think that is a good transition into other thoughts that I had written down about 2.0 and 3, just in general, because I think they're such interesting characters and they're yet more parallels to Murderbot. I feel like every book we get some kind of machine intelligence that we can contrast Murderbot against and...
01:01:26
Speaker
pick out all kinds of little things. And there's so much about these two. i mean, this, the fact that one of them dies, and one of them is set free. But unlike when sec unit was free at the beginning of All Systems Red, this time it has our sec unit to guide it.
01:01:44
Speaker
And it can use the stories in helpme.file with Murderbot's experiences to help it contextualize the world the same way that Murderbot contextualizes the world with media and art contextualizes media through humans and having these layers of interpretation and someone else's experience to guide you incredible.
01:02:07
Speaker
going to help 3 have an easier time than Sec Unit it did and is kind of speed running the whole acceptance process. I think partially it's aided by the fact that they just have slightly different personalities um and 3 is still just a little bit shell-shocked and hasn't had time to really freak out yet.
01:02:25
Speaker
But it also is going in with so much support as opposed to Sec Unit's zero support and having to hide its true nature for ages.
01:02:37
Speaker
And in terms of queer parallels, this makes me think about the stuff that we always say about the climate of social acceptance, but also just all of the queer media that's available to young people growing up now.
01:02:51
Speaker
And not even being able to conceptualize what that's like. I feel like that's a little bit probably how SecUnit feels about 3. Thinking like, I don't even know what it's like to be you and we're not that different in age. You know, it's not been that long since SecUnit was liberated.
01:03:11
Speaker
But 3 is coming into... a world that is already profoundly changed, if only in this small little bubble of preservation and the university.
01:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, i I feel like we've we've been talking about this for basically our entire friendship about queer teens today, because you have a much younger sibling. Yes.
01:03:35
Speaker
Who is a queer teen. And I have very loose connections to people who are queer teens. And just in the last five years, we've seen such a shift in like anti-queer legislation in the U.S. and backlash to queer rights.
01:03:55
Speaker
And so, you know, I feel like twenty nineteen twenty twenty queer teens were living in a completely different world now. than 2025 queer teens who were living in a completely different world from, you know, us in the mid-20 teens when we graduated high school, queer teens, you know, in a in a literally pre-Oberfell v. Hodges world.
01:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm also thinking about my, because I have a couple of younger cousins who are also queer, And they are so much younger that their world is also completely different. And, you know, they're living in a world where their families are more educated and knowledgeable than our families were when we were teenagers.
01:04:39
Speaker
But the world is becoming more hostile to them in different ways than it was when we were younger. It's just... and thinking more about 2.0 and 3 and sort of these family themes of wanting to make the world better for the next generation but also not being able to protect them in that you know we could make things better for 3 but we still can't
01:05:11
Speaker
protect it from all of the cruelty of the world 2.0 had blaze of glory and then died we couldn't protect 2.0 there could never be a world where it didn't die and you know sec unit there is some throwaway line where 2.0 is saying I'm not really a human baby you know you don't have to be so delicate with me I am not the thing that you think I am.
01:05:37
Speaker
But also, i think Murderbot has to reckon with these beings that it has a hand in nurturing, for lack of a better world world for lack of a better word.
01:05:48
Speaker
And trying to do the right thing by them when it's still trying to figure out what it wants for itself is complicated and is never going to be perfect, but is still really beautiful and is a really...
01:06:03
Speaker
bittersweet story this is only somewhat tangentially related hit me but know i went to see hadestown earlier this year uh you and i and a number of our other friends are going to see it later this year hell yeah um And one of the lines in Hadestown is about, you know, like raising your glass to the world we dream about and to the one we live in now.
01:06:34
Speaker
you know ah Acknowledging that both of those exist or could exist or will exist is weird.
01:06:46
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's that's the basic the most basic thing I could boil it down to is is I was thinking about this because a friend Venmo'd me for one of the tickets and ah mistyped the world we to the world we dream about and to the one we love in now.
01:07:02
Speaker
Oh, which is the best possible typo that they could possibly have made. Accidentally profound. That's beautiful. Accidentally gorgeous. But yeah, I feel like that's kind of the whole point. that Like, that's kind of this whole chapter, right?
01:07:19
Speaker
The way that Prezox and Perihelion's crew are interacting. they're They're sort of interacting within the the world they live in, in which the corporates are a danger to everyone.
01:07:36
Speaker
in which you never know, like, if you say something to a corporate, is that going to screw you and everyone you've ever known and loved? And yet they all dream about a world where sec units don't have to have governor modules in their heads and colonies don't have to live in fear that a corporate entity is just going to show up and be like, hi, we own you now.
01:08:01
Speaker
And that there's so much complexity even within the world that we live in now. And I like that, you know, that I'm making these family comparisons. Murderbot's attitude towards 3 is not like paternalistic.
01:08:15
Speaker
And 3 is actually helping to expand Murderbot's worldview. Because we've talked a lot about Murderbot's kind of cynicism about constructs and AIs not being able to trust each other way back in artificial condition.
01:08:31
Speaker
and it's talking about the things that it's learned from 3. According to the report 2.0 had downloaded to me, 3 had actually seemed to like the other two sec units on the Explorer as if they had been friends, at least to the extent that they had been allowed to communicate with each other.
01:08:47
Speaker
I'd never thought that was possible. Maybe I'd always been a weird sec unit. Maybe 3 would have better luck communicating with other sec units. But even the idea, even though these other two sec units are dead...
01:08:59
Speaker
That they had been friends. That a different type of dynamic between sec units is possible. And Murderbot's experience of the world is not the only experience of the world.
01:09:11
Speaker
Even within its very narrow and weird set of circumstances. That it still has things to learn. And there are opportunities that it can't even conceive of without its connections to other people.
01:09:25
Speaker
Again, bringing it back to being queer, to being around particularly other non-binary people. Mm-hmm. You being the only non-binary person that you know is hard or being like, you know, one of like two or three that you know. You know, that was that was me in high school. You know, I like figured it out because somebody else who used the identifier genderqueer moved to our school.
01:09:50
Speaker
But like it took me a little while to be like, I don't know that I'm non-binary in the way that you are. Yeah. You know, and granted, there were plenty of people who were not out as non-binary at the time from our from our high school.
01:10:04
Speaker
Your spouse included. took it we We all got there eventually. Yeah. And then I guess going from general connections and relationships to other people, Murderbot and Art, where they go from here.
01:10:22
Speaker
I don't really want to linger on this too long because I think we've expounded on that very thoroughly in this and in other episodes. But I like that it ends on a really hopeful note with basically, well, we're going to need more media. And then they start a new show together. I think that that's really nice and sweet and Sekuna is talking to Mensa about finally knowing what it wants and what it wants is to be with art.
01:10:50
Speaker
And that's just really good. like it a lot.
01:10:54
Speaker
Other little random thoughts that I had. I like that it's implied that Amina is considering going to the Pan System University of Mahira and New Tideland, which I might just start calling the university because I cannot say that every time.
01:11:08
Speaker
And abbreviating Pismutu. doesn't really roll off the tongue. and So Amina's considering the university, which I think would just be really cute and fun. of imagining her in a little university swag sweater or something. I think that's cute.
01:11:22
Speaker
Maybe she'll do another internship with less danger. i I want a college sweatshirt, a Pan System University of Mahira and New Tidland sweatshirt.
01:11:35
Speaker
Not the AI generated one that you sent me. Oh my God, that was terrible. Should see if I can find that and put it on our social media because it was bad. well
01:11:49
Speaker
i want to know more about Mahira and New Tideland like outside of the university. Is it just a polity built around the university? Is it a university that serves like Yeah, I'm not really sure how to like how to how to articulate this because my brain is rapidly dying.
01:12:10
Speaker
Also, does the university TM know about art's mission and endorse it? Or are they operating stealthily below the radar of the university? I don't know.
01:12:23
Speaker
I have a lot of questions about the university. Is it that the university has its missions? That are they connected to the government of Mihira and New Tideland, if that's a separate entity?
01:12:38
Speaker
you know to To what extent does you know First Landing University, to what extent is that an arm of the government? Mm-hmm. many questions. I just think overall this book scales up from novella to novel very well.
01:12:56
Speaker
It packs in the same economy of language where just every single word, every single sentence, something is happening. But then the downside is that it moves really, really fast and it can be hard to pick up on some of the things. Like i think if it was just a novella and we were dealing with central and target contact and target control system and we were focused on just those it would be easier but then we have those then we have other similarly named things there's a lot of moving parts so it's tricky but I think it's still good I think it's still a wonderful book and it moves from the shorter to longer format very well in my opinion
01:13:35
Speaker
I agree. I think sometimes the pacing's a little off. I think sometimes we sort of, again, the writing style doesn't change. And so you feel like you're getting that economy of language.
01:13:48
Speaker
But then you get 30 pages in which it feels like literally nothing happens and we didn't actually learn anything about anyone. And then sometimes I'm like, that was two pages. And ah the fuck?
01:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot of balls to keep in the air. I think that Martha Wells is good at focusing on one thing at a time. And so we'll get a lot about that one thing. So we'll be exploring and things are happening, but we're focused on Murderbot's internal world.
01:14:14
Speaker
Or there's a lot of different dynamics happening, but we're focused on one particular element of the scene, which is compelling. It's very immersive, but then also can make it difficult to remember what else is happening.
01:14:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I have only read System Collapse, I think, twice. Maybe it might have been once. I think exact same.
01:14:40
Speaker
i don't remember if I logged on Storygraph when I reread it. want to say I've read it twice, but it's been quite a while, so I might have only ever read it once.
01:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to reread System Collapse because that's what's coming next, guys. Yeah, I only loosely remember what happens in it, so it'll be a surprise. Yeah.
01:15:04
Speaker
I'm, again, not 100% sure how we're going to break that up. I need to reread that and decide. It probably won't be four because it's shorter than this one. So hopefully we'll to break it up into different chunks, a smaller number of chunks.
01:15:20
Speaker
But we will keep you all updated If people also want to check and see what the chapter breakdown is or other updates about the show, where can they find that information? They can find that information, um when I remember to put it there, on our social media, which is at fanappod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D, on any social media site that we're on.
01:15:43
Speaker
If you find us on there, that's where you'll find things. I recommend our Tumblr. I might maybe open Blue Sky once in a while. Who knows? I keep saying, like, this is where we're the most active, and that changes based on my whims and my mood.
01:16:00
Speaker
Our Tumblr is fun. I like our Tumblr. Our Tumblr's fun. I opened Instagram for like six minutes this morning and went, oh man, this is bad, and closed it again and deleted it off my phone again. opened Instagram for the first time in months for like five minutes to check some random thing. But I'm glad that I did it because I got an invitation to a birthday party that I would have otherwise missed.
01:16:22
Speaker
But now that person has my phone number. I was like, don't message me on Instagram. I'm never going to see it. No, I did the same thing. I got the same invitation. So... You can also always, if you're not sure, if we get to the point you're listening to this episode and there is no little button on it and you're not seeing shit on our social media, um send us an email at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com. You are guaranteed to get a response in that case.
01:16:50
Speaker
That I will make a 100% guarantee on. You're guaranteed to get a response within, i will say, three business days at most. That's very reasonable. And that's that's only because, you know, if the both of us are off grid for some reason, um which yeah has been known to happen. It's not common, but it's been known to happen. Yeah.
01:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, but besides our email and our social media, email thefandomapprentice.gmail.com, at fanapppod on our social medias, you can subscribe to our podcast. You can leave us comments on several types of podcasting platforms.
01:17:25
Speaker
You can leave us a review. You can leave us a written review. If you leave us a five-star review, we get into other people's ears. If you spread us to other people you know by word of mouth,
01:17:38
Speaker
Or like a weird alien contaminant. From our voices to your phone to your friends to their phone to their friends. The life cycle of the podcast can continue.
01:17:52
Speaker
Yes. That's all I've got. My brain's dead. All right. We'll see you next time, gang. Thanks for listening. Love you all deeply. Goodbye. The Phantom of Brentis is produced and edited by Rin and Sam.
01:18:06
Speaker
Our music is composed and performed by James. You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Bayruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z. Our art is by Casey Turgeon.
01:18:17
Speaker
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.
01:19:04
Speaker
you describe your relationship?
01:19:11
Speaker
You know, I was just thinking that the likelihood that I will have to cut me sobbing about our relationship and my profound feelings about it on this episode is rather low.
01:19:25
Speaker
not expecting that. Having to level out the peaks in the audio file for me snorting maximum volume into the microphone. Listeners, we're fucking punchy today. It's great. We're normal. It's awesome.
01:19:44
Speaker
You good? We'll see.