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Ep 2.7- Panic! at the Arts Festival/Conference/Religious Observance
14 Plays22 days ago
Not all is well with Murderbot, but when is it ever? Ryn and Sam follow our favorite rogue SecUnit through the first three chapters of Network Effect, the first novel in the Murderbot Diaries! Topics include the gender politics of aunts, cis discomfort with trans presentation, intense feelings in platonic relationships, puppy eyes as a weapon of war, and Murderbot murdering on a murderboat.
Covers Chapters 1-3 of The Murderbot Diaries: Network Effect (2020) by Martha Wells, winner of the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 2020 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 2021 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Recommended
Transcript
K-pop Demon Hunters Album and Personal Stories
00:00:00
Speaker
We need to talk about K-pop Demon Hunters. Yes, please. I've been listening to the soundtrack all day. I literally have Idol stuck in my head right now. But honestly, i hate to say it. I think Soda Pop might be my favorite.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's my least favorite song in the entire album. My coworker was wandering around all day just going, he's done don't do but just all day at like just that line and like every time she'd walk past and do that i would i would immediately go and start but ah here and and finally our other co-worker was like can one of you just play the full song please
00:00:42
Speaker
And I was like, what, you don't want you don't want to hear us just singing the same line over and over again? There is a ah law in my house that is designed specifically to oppress me, where I am not allowed to play the same song out loud more than once in a 24-hour period, because Miles gets them stuck in their head really bad, and then it just becomes an impossible ADHD brain worm. So I get it. But also, I'm the type of person who will just listen to a song on repeat for a very, very, very long time.
00:01:17
Speaker
So, like, maybe I want to listen to the same five songs on loop for four hours.
K-pop Demon Hunters Movie Highlights
00:01:23
Speaker
I have to do that in secret. Yeah, I do. So I do, like, I need...
00:01:29
Speaker
to have variation in the music I listen to. But in this case, I have listened to How It's Done at least 20 times in the last three days. The thing about How It's Done is that I love women.
00:01:42
Speaker
i love women so much.
00:01:47
Speaker
I think that's that's all I need. No, but it's so fucking good because you sent me the clip because you were talking about K-pop Demon Hunter so much and I was like, okay, you know, I'll bite. I'll check this out because as we know, listeners, Rin has good taste in media and the things that you like, I tend to also like, but I'm not a big movie person and I have never listened to K-pop besides just like, you know, the amount that you absorb by being a person in society.
00:02:12
Speaker
So you sent me the how it's done clip. And then, I mean, it was chef's kiss immediately. But then when I saw the twist that there was also a rival demon boy band, I was fucking sold. I was like, this is the best thing ever.
Obsession with Huntrix Girls
00:02:27
Speaker
And I have gone on record many times on the show and also in book club. I like when things happen. do the thing that they say they're going to do if they deliver on their promise the promise in this title is k-pop demon hunters and it fucking delivers it is and ah i'm sure that you have more structured thoughts but i freaking love it i'm obsessed i have i have the brain worms i am now following the polytrix tag on tumblr and blue sky i'm sorry the what now
00:03:01
Speaker
but That's the ship name for the for the three of them is Polly Tricks. Oh, I love it. i mean Which is really cute. They're a new OTP for or OT3 for me. and I mean, absolutely. you can You can mix and match those girls any way you want.
00:03:15
Speaker
Or no ways. That's fine. They're just, they're so they're so shippable and they're tortured and they have their little feelings and they're also feral and weird and they're just like the best girls.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah. They're the
Queer and Trans-coded Elements in Animation
00:03:30
Speaker
best girls. I love them. You pointed out that Rumi's ah eyeliner is in the bisexual flag colors. Yeah.
00:03:39
Speaker
In the bi-pride colors in the correct order and the correct... tone and hue. There is absolutely no way to mistake that for anything other than fully intentional.
00:03:52
Speaker
And I mean, I saw it immediately. And, you know, there's no reason for it in the scene. It's, you know, her color palette is very purple, but it's not something that would happen accidentally. It's definitely a thousand percent on purpose.
00:04:04
Speaker
And I had to stop the movie And rewind and go back to take a screenshot because I was so excited. I also got very, you know, and this is because in part because it's me.
00:04:16
Speaker
There's very, very like, first of all, their storylines in general are very queer. hmm. They all have their Saja boy, or in Mira's case, Saja boys. As she deserves. That were meant to be like, ah, yes, they're cute together. The Saja boys are really one-dimensional to me. Even Genu, like, I don't care.
00:04:37
Speaker
that's I think that's kind of the whole point, is that they are, pun intended, soulless. there They are very, another pun intended, one note, one might say. And that is the entire point of them, contrasted against our dynamic, fascinating Huntrix, girls.
00:04:56
Speaker
Also, Huntrix is a kick-ass name. It's so cool. No, it's it's really fucking solid. And the just the the stylization where the eye is a backslash.
Unique Animation and Fight Scenes
00:05:06
Speaker
Yes, that's so good.
00:05:08
Speaker
I know nothing about K-pop. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music. I am, we've mentioned I'm a musician on this podcast. I know jack fuck about K-pop. I know jack fuck about a lot of pop music and especially about K-pop.
00:05:21
Speaker
So I hear, and I understand from reading over the last few days, that there are a lot of like various references to K-pop and, and within how it's done, there's like four different lines that are direct references to other popular K-pop songs.
00:05:39
Speaker
apparently. And I, you know, didn't pick up on any of that shit. Fair. Because I just, I know nothing about K-pop. But like, if you, like Sam and I, know nothing about K-pop, it is still an incredible movie.
00:05:52
Speaker
Same studio that did the Spider-Verse movies. So it is visually just gorgeous. And you can really tell that it has soul and is made with love. It's not just empty 3D husks bouncing around a screen. Because I think that we definitely had a period of very empty 3D animation that just didn't have like the heart of 2D animation.
00:06:17
Speaker
And I think that now more mainstream studios are starting to hit their stride with making it fun and stylized. And it's not about being as hyper-realistic as possible. It's very silly.
00:06:28
Speaker
i will say, how so How It's Done is definitely my favorite song. I like Golden a lot. And if you don't cry during what it sounds like... But, oh, I think the point I was getting at was, so they all have like very sort of queer notes to their storylines.
00:06:45
Speaker
But I think Mira and Rumi especially have kind of very trans storylines too. there's some There's some undertones and to like the way they're portrayed, the way they they're talked about that is, <unk>s it's very trans-coded.
00:07:06
Speaker
know i don't necessarily think they were meant to be but particularly rumi's demon storyline is is very transcoded it's very you know don't let them in don't let them see then you get into the whole bit of she never wants to go to the bathhouse with the other two so they've you know in their entire lives have never actually seen her naked and yeah whole thing there mira's speaking voice is also just so like husky and deep and wonderful and mira is also of course just like tall and sassy and
Cultural References in Song Lyrics and Humor
00:07:44
Speaker
amazing but the fit check for my napalm era like the face that she's making the way that she's like sitting on like the rocket or whatever it is and like on the demon
00:07:54
Speaker
ah that she's She's an ethereal. I'm gay. No, I don't. Yes. That whole section, heels, nails, blade, mascara.
00:08:04
Speaker
Incredible. I love, you know, how quickly they go from incredibly fast to English wordplay to Korean to well enunciated, slow, like focused words.
00:08:26
Speaker
You go from nothing to us, run up, you're done up. We come up from sunup to sundown. So come out to play one either way. We're one in a million. We kill him. Like really you want hunt it? Okay. To heels, nails, blade, mascara. Yeah.
00:08:41
Speaker
Let's make sure you can hear every individual word here. Yes. i I've watched that scene more than I've watched any other scene in the movie. The way that Rumi opens that scene, it just like flashes in on her eyes.
00:08:57
Speaker
You're like, and she's just like, oh, fuck this. And I've seen so many GIFs of the little hand gesture that she makes flicking her fingers out. And it's like, go, my girlfriends. And then they run. just like They're like dogs that have been unleashed and told that they can go chase bunnies. They're like yes, yes, yes, let's go.
00:09:15
Speaker
Well, and i so I slowed the scene down to watch each of them do their thing. Because Rumi's doing the slow... villain walk almost there. That's the, you are so fucked when I get to you. yeah And I'm going to let you anticipate every moment of it.
00:09:36
Speaker
Well, in the meantime, like Zoe is doing the the Black Widow move where she, you know, comes up. that I've also seen it called like the Gams of Steel or something. It's ah it's ah it's a common move in a lot of movies with fighting women, fighting Larger men. Because, you know, using your legs is still feminine because we can't have women use upper body strength to defeat the larger man, which is clearly not fair, I guess.
00:10:08
Speaker
But yeah, doing the like leap, climb, tackle them around the neck with her legs, bring them to the ground and then break the arm. Whereas Mira's over on the other side doing the high kick, take them down, kick them down, and then just go in and beat their face.
00:10:29
Speaker
it's It's so perfect. um And the badass look on Rumi's face when she falls backwards out of the plane. Which is just your D&D character to a T. This is I think both of our D&D characters would love.
00:10:46
Speaker
This movie, K-pop in general, the Huntrix girls specifically, they would want to be their best
Cultural Context and Character Ages
00:10:51
Speaker
friends. Sahara and Rumi, I mean, they're even both purple. It's... Also, the tiger and the magpie.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yes, I love them so much. Little meh. Hello, friend. The little meh and the tiger has put the inv invite on its tongue.
00:11:11
Speaker
As somebody who's really into stationery right now, I want those little note cards with the duck that say, hello, friend. I would buy those. And then I use them to write notes.
00:11:22
Speaker
Oh, my God. and then save the date. And then she makes the comment to Geno because he's interpreting it literally and saying, oh, it's a date. You said save the date. She goes, oh, I forget you're from the And then being born in the Oh, She be born in the year 2000 and be 25. She canonically be younger.
00:11:36
Speaker
she could be born in the year two thousand and be twenty five she might canonically be younger She's a pop star. They're young. I i know they're in their, there's, I believe they're canonically in their early twenties. I know Rumi is the oldest of the three of them.
00:11:53
Speaker
Canonically. And I, I think they're all under 26. Which now also as an aging millennial, I feel like a fucking creep lusting after these cartoon women. Oh no, you're too young for me. Yeah.
00:12:11
Speaker
there's just i there's so much i want to say about k-pop demon hunters it's so good it's it's really really excellent i think my other little favorite bit my my favorite bit with genu because largely i don't really give a shit about him that's fair other than like your idol has as as our friend patrick slash gungus has said it has gravitas it's so toxic in a fun way Yeah, there's also a little bit in in the lyrics at the beginning, um because they're they're chanting pray for me now at the beginning.
00:12:43
Speaker
And then there's the Latin, the diesire. But it's the words they use are not the actual diesire. Ooh, spicy.
00:12:54
Speaker
So
Emotional Impact of Song Lyrics
00:12:55
Speaker
the ah original, supposedly, according to the piece I was seeing, translates to the day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in ashes. What they use...
00:13:06
Speaker
Dies Irei Ila, Vos sove in favila, Maledictus Eras in Flamas Eternum, is the day of wrath, that day you will turn to ashes, cursed, I will burn forever.
00:13:20
Speaker
Oh, no. That's so sad. Just a magical sad voice. Yeah. Yeah. And one of them named Abby because he has abs. And that's his whole bit is that he has abs, which is very And they're doing signings and he's just doing like a texture rubbing of the pencil on his abs. So it makes an impression. Yeah.
00:13:43
Speaker
Oh, yes. But the the the my favorite piece about them is um when Rumi asks Gino about the magpie's hat. And he just goes, i made it for the tiger, which explains nothing.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker
And that's that's all we get. It's just, I made it for the tiger. Move on. Just imagining him sewing a tiny hat for the tiger. As soon as I saw a bird with a tiny hat and Rumi going, it's a bird with a tiny hat.
00:14:14
Speaker
i was I was immediately in love. I didn't know or care what it was. It's going, no, that's my it's my baby. I love this bird. And I love this tiger. And they're so stupid.
Korean Folk Art Influence on Animation
00:14:23
Speaker
They're so wonderful. They are apparently a very common...
00:14:28
Speaker
theme in Korean folk art. And I'm not going to comment anymore on that because I don't know any more than I've read over the last two days. And anybody listening to this podcast can also find that.
00:14:40
Speaker
You should Google it because all the tigers look like that. And it's really fun. Like that's that's why they animated it like that is because that's what it looks like in the pop art. The magpies don't all have three eyes, but... Or tiny hats.
00:14:55
Speaker
Or tiny hats, tragically. Yeah. I could talk about this forever. i could talk about the fact that their ramen cups have their names on them, and then Mira's says Spice Queen, Rumi's says Superstar Flavor, and Zoe's says Hamburger, which, like, she's American, we get it.
00:15:12
Speaker
I could talk about this forever, but I think we should also talk about Murderbot. How do you feel about talking about Murderbot? I would love nothing more.
00:15:36
Speaker
Mirror, mirror on my phone. Who's the baddest? Us. Hello, everyone.
00:15:43
Speaker
Well done, bestie. Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Fandom Apprentice. Thank you for indulging us in our slightly longer than normal out front media review.
00:15:57
Speaker
I haven't been ah that obsessed with a movie or a show in a long time. That's a pretty high bar. Yeah, yeah. I was obsessed with West Wing, but like not to the same level.
00:16:10
Speaker
But hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Phantom Apprentice. I'm one of your hosts. My name is Rin. I am a lifelong nerd. I grew up on all sorts of fantasy and sci-fi in various formats, and I have made it my life's work for to inflict various forms of media onto my friends so I have somebody to yell about it with.
00:16:37
Speaker
Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. I'm here to do the other half of the yelling. Today we are starting on the first novel in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, Network Effect.
00:16:49
Speaker
And this one we are going to be splitting up across multiple episodes because it is a whole ass novel, so it's pretty long. And today we're going to cover chapters one through three.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll get a little deeper into this, I guess, than we have gotten into the novellas, which I guess just to start us right off, if we thought Murderbot was a snarky bitch earlier, we have seen nothing yet.
00:17:15
Speaker
the The extra length lets Martha Wells like really delve into just how much of an asshole Murderbot is. But, you know, it keeps it in check to an extent.
00:17:28
Speaker
Fair. And I forgot, like, right out the gate, I think I texted you right when I started rereading this with, I forgot that this book is just banger line after banger line. The first paragraph alone. I've had clients who thought they needed an absurd level of security.
00:17:44
Speaker
And I'm talking absurd even by my standards. And my code was developed by a bond company known for intense xenophobic paranoia, tempered only by desperate greed. I've also had clients who thought they didn't need any security at all right up until something ate them.
00:17:58
Speaker
That's mostly a metaphor. My uneaten client status is high. Where do you go from there? Only up, or in this case down into the water.
00:18:09
Speaker
I did adapt a little bit of formatting from our novella episodes and just did a little short summary of each chapter. Mm-hmm. As opposed to the sort of line by line pick through that we did for Lord of the Rings.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah. So if you want to just quickly broad strokes over chapter one and then we can get more into it. sweet so we open with dr erada who we haven't seen in quite a while and thiago who's mensa's brother-in-law they are doing some kind of science murderbot is swimming under a raider vessel they're in the ocean which is exciting the raiders are rudely trying to board the prezox sea research facility murderbot got shot and is making the most of being in the water
00:18:58
Speaker
picking through raiders on the boat while Thiago negotiates with the ones who've already boarded their vessel. There's a little bit of drama because Thiago doesn't trust Murderbot, but Mensah insisted that it come on this survey because it's the only person who she trusts with her daughter who is also there.
00:19:12
Speaker
And then Arada shoots a guy dead. He survives. He survives. Oh, I thought she shot him dead. No, she shot him in the arm. And then ah she asked Murtabot in chapter two, like it like, basically, is he going to live? And Murtabot was like, if they treat him, yeah, sure, probably.
00:19:30
Speaker
Fair. that I guess I just got overly excited about her firing a gun. I was so dazzled that I didn't even notice where the shot went. and feel like, yeah, sec unit, this whole chapter, is in rare form with both Snark and, like, with making things sound...
00:19:46
Speaker
sci-fi generic, which just shows us, you know, it's showing us how much it doesn't care about the specifics. I swam up from under the stern, careful to avoid the propulsion device.
00:19:57
Speaker
Okay. Propeller. Jet. Yeah. But then, so, yeah, so they're in like an ocean planet doing research. Murderbot talks about how like they'd been approached slowly by two previous vessels and traded some supplies with them.
00:20:12
Speaker
And it knew that this vessel, the way that it approached was definitely doing so with hostile intent, or there was a 72% chance it was doing so with hostile intent. But anyway, Murderbot gets on the murder boat and more or less, you know, disables the attacking force.
00:20:30
Speaker
I love that everyone is gay. That is beautiful to me. Just, you know, we have Mensa has got herself a wife and a spouse. Tiago has got himself at least one husband being Mensa's brother. Arada's got Oversay.
00:20:46
Speaker
They're just, they're just all gay. And- I don't know what the fuck is happening on stupid boat. So the boat that the Raiders are on and that Murderbot is infiltrating, it refers to as stupid boat.
00:21:01
Speaker
And it's trying to get any kind of useful information off of Stupid Boat. It says, Stupid Boat had its own rudimentary feed that was heavy with games and pornography, but light on anything that might be helpful for a security assessment, like who these people were and what they wanted.
00:21:15
Speaker
Even the individual humans' feed signatures only contained info about sexual availability and gender presentation, which I didn't give a damn about. So what is this boat on this empty ocean planet where everyone's just fucking but also raiding other ships?
00:21:35
Speaker
Very unclear what is happening here. Yeah, they're an orchestra. Something is going over my head and I don't get it. It's full of sax and violins.
00:21:47
Speaker
But, um,
00:21:50
Speaker
isn't a saxophone not in a classical orchestra? Didn't you tell me that once? Yeah, they're not. They're they're typically typically no, unless they're needed for a specific piece. Yeah. But listen, I had to make the joke. It was very good. And I was thinking, okay, well, maybe Stupid Boat got taken over by the Raiders, and now they're using it for some reason, but it doesn't seem like that's the case.
00:22:14
Speaker
no Well, in Stupid Boat, it's sort of it's kind of glossed over, but it sounds like Stupid Boat like has, or as I was calling it this whole time, the murder boat has a big like anti-ship weapon on it.
00:22:29
Speaker
So it's like it's designed to be... generally evil. um I think i think the idea here is that the the idea here is to sort of be like, you know, the raiders were not intellectual geniuses who were set to take over the world.
00:22:49
Speaker
They're kind of just interested in, you know, short-term pleasure and taking shit from other people they come across. That's fair. Which, not that, like, sex correlates to general degeneracy, which, but I feel like that's, one, that's kind of Murderbot's interpretation.
00:23:09
Speaker
And it's two, ah that's how, I guess, the best interpretation is for this, I suppose, which is, you know, the the Raiders, like, that's their, yeah, the the games and pornography are sort of their general wind down when they're not doing piracy. Mm-hmm.
00:23:28
Speaker
They're pirates. That's, yeah that's, yeah. That's standard pirates. Yeah. I mean, we've all seen, nope, I can't even finish that because I haven't seen, what's the HBO one with the, the, the gay pirates?
00:23:41
Speaker
I don't know. That's the, fuck, now it's killing me because I can see it in my mind. it has the guy with the incredible robe that all the cosplayers want to make. Which with Taika Waititi plays Blackbeard.
00:23:55
Speaker
yeah Well, our flag means death. There we go. um I've also watched, you know, Black Sails, which also has so much sex and violence, but is is it much more serious. And I've tried a couple of times, but man, that first season is rough to get through.
00:24:14
Speaker
um Anyway, pirates. So that makes sense that that's what the deal is with Stupid Boat. That that tracks. Yeah, they're pirates. I also love that even though we are dealing with pirates with giant anti-ship weapons, that honestly doesn't feel like it's the main driving stressor in this situation. Those don't feel like the main stakes.
00:24:37
Speaker
The main stake, the thing that Murderbot is really concerned about, is Arada's apparently nuclear-level sad eyes. Yeah.
00:24:48
Speaker
Let me find. Thiago was standing out on said observation deck, the deck of their research vessel, trying to reason with a potential target. That's potential, per the earlier conversation where Dr. Arata said, oh, sec unit, I wish you wouldn't call people targets.
00:25:05
Speaker
And there's just so much where it's constantly referencing, I could kill this person. It would make sense for me to kill this person. But if I did, then Arata would make a sad face. And Thiago would be pissed off.
00:25:18
Speaker
But I think we know which one it cares more about. oh definitely. The sad eyes are the problem. But I do love that that's that's the main thing that we're really worried about is we just don't want to make Arata sad.
00:25:31
Speaker
Which is just wonderful. There's the other piece, because it's jumping around a little bit in timeline here, when it gets shot initially and falls into the water and Oversay is yelling at it like, are you okay?
00:25:43
Speaker
And it's like, it literally says, I've got everything under fucking control. Which just shows us how comfortable it's gotten with Prezox and the Prezox survey group.
00:25:56
Speaker
It's kept it swearing, like because it swears all the time. But it's kept that mostly internal for the last few books. Mm-hmm. But now it's openly like, no, fuck this.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah. Fuck you. Fuck them. um I still get a hard currency card no matter how many times I say fuck.
00:26:18
Speaker
Which I have more commentary on that in chapter two. Anyway. Oh, absolutely. I also just love seeing more. i mean, like I said, up top, we haven't seen Arada in a while. It's fun to see her more because she is the leader of this survey.
00:26:30
Speaker
And she obviously shoots the Raider guy. And I like that we're seeing ways that other members of Prezox are affected by their experiences with Grey Chris and Arada.
00:26:42
Speaker
takes a weapons course. And Murderbot says, I guess having a bunch of murderers chasing you around a planet so they can suppress your research by murdering you would tend to make you more cautious, even if you are a terminal optimist.
00:26:55
Speaker
So as funny as that is, and that's another just banger line from Murderbot, the terminal optimist of the group, sweet, sunny, nice Arata, is ready to shoot a man because she has been so fucked up by her experiences.
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, which which specifically the terminal optimist is what her wife calls her. And this is the book where it's revealed that they are married. It does not... We know that they're in a relationship prior to this, but this is the one... i am We know that they're marital partners, I thought.
00:27:26
Speaker
No, I am like 100% certain that in All Systems Red, it does not say that they're married. I'm 100% certain it says that they they were marital partners, but... I'm checking because I feel... You have the text. Because I remember reading this book for the first time and going, oh my god, they're married. Yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
So let's control F for Oversay. Yep. All it says is Oversay and Erada were a couple, but from the way they acted, they'd always been one and they were best friends with Rothy. It says they are a couple.
00:27:56
Speaker
This is the book where it says they're married. I do win. win. I'm happy for them because it's, were they married this whole time? Did they get married in between the events of All Systems Red? And now Murderbot doesn't know and doesn't care, but I care.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, Murderbot doesn't give a single shit about human relationships. We, however, do Just because we're anarchists about relationships doesn't mean that we don't like them. That's actually kind of the reason we're anarchists about them.
00:28:23
Speaker
More relationship. Love is abundant and every relationship is unique. Slap sec unit. Well, I can't slap sec unit because it would not let me survive slapping it. But for the purposes of the meme, slap sec unit, this bad boy can fit so many relationships in it.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah. It does, there's another piece where it overhears Oversay talking to somebody else. And Oversay's like, yes, it's fine. Yes, of course it's pissed.
00:28:53
Speaker
And I just, I love how comfortable they've all gotten with each other. As much as sec unit is still kind of trying to hold itself at arm's length, the rest of the team has gotten to know it a lot better and it's gotten to know the rest of the team.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah. And then just narratively to inject some drama and inject some tension into the scenario where otherwise we might get a little too comfortable. We have Thiago, who does not trust Murderbot. Their relationship is very difficult. so I think we'll get more into that maybe in chapter two Mm hmm.
00:29:32
Speaker
But he does is one of those people who doesn't really understand why Mensa needs a sec unit, why this sec unit specifically feels threatened, feels uncomfortable. like Their relationship is just very tense.
00:29:47
Speaker
And we get a little recording of a conversation between Mensa and Thiago. where she's saying, you know, SecUnit's great. I trust it with my daughter. You know, in fact, if you don't let SecUnit go, I'm not going to let Amina go. And we'll talk about Amina as well because i fucking love her.
00:30:01
Speaker
I fucking love Amina. But then she says, of course it has its faults. In fact, it's probably listening to us right now. Are you listening, SecUnit? Me on the feed. What?
00:30:12
Speaker
No.
00:30:16
Speaker
First, I guess, other question. Thiago or Tiago? I've been, I thought it was Tiago. i think it probably is Tiago and I'm probably just saying it wrong because I have not been listening to the audiobook for this one. I've been reading the text.
00:30:28
Speaker
So my names are perhaps not all accurate. But yes, I think it is Tiago. I think you're right. Also, Mensa's other marital partner. i also. Farai and Tano.
00:30:39
Speaker
Tano. I always want to say Tano, but it's Tano. but Anything else for chapter one? I don't think so. Just and while we're on the subject of, you know, fight scenes being works of art, this one's solid.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah. Especially when you when you bring in all of its little like bits of commentary on like where it consciously pulls back its response.
00:31:06
Speaker
Because you know part part of it taking care of the Prezox team is also taking care of the fact that they don't like to be directly responsible for death yeah it doesn't want to kill indiscriminately later in chapter two it talks about how rathi's never seen it kill anyone up close and it really wants to keep it that way and we've talked before about it not wanting to traumatize its humans more than necessary that's nice
00:31:38
Speaker
Chapter two? Yes, chapter two. So chapter two, we get a little bit more context that this mission is Murderbot's first time working survey security fully as itself, not pretending to be an augmented human or having an augmented human supervisor whatever. It is just fully out proud as a Murderbot.
00:31:57
Speaker
Arada feels really bad about shooting that guy. We get teased with the introduction of something called helpme.file, which we will talk a lot more about as the book goes on. Oh, yes. And then most of this chapter is a flashback to a scene from some kind of big festival on preservation, kind of film arts cute thing.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah. Art festival slash conference slash religious observance. Yeah, all that stuff. And we get a lot of information about Mensa and her family. Her adult family members are very wary of Murderbot, but her kids love it, except maybe Amina will talk about that too.
00:32:34
Speaker
Murderbot and Mensa have a big feelings talk. Mensa's afraid to go off station without Murderbot, and 99% of people in her life don't understand why.
00:32:44
Speaker
And Mensa says that she hates feeling weak and wants to feel more independent, basically. And so then we close out on the feelings chat. But this is the chapter that I have the most on. I think it's super interesting. oh I have so much on this chapter.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah. Where do you want to start? um I think just chronologically. Mensa lures, which is Murderbot's words, lures it down to the planet. with promises of live performances at the art festival slash conference slash religious observance.
00:33:16
Speaker
And when it questions how many, how many performances is a lot of live performances, it's apparently 87 plus. Um, and it will manage to see or record 32 plays and musicals with drones while Mensa is otherwise occupied.
00:33:33
Speaker
So good. There is also, so before before we get into this, this flashback is is part of helpme.file excerpt one. It says, file detached from main narrative.
00:33:44
Speaker
What is this? What does it mean? We'll find out eventually. And the the other beginning part is, is again, the the the piece immediately following, because it turns out the facility, the research facility they were on, is able to get into orbit on its own.
00:34:02
Speaker
So it launches into orbit and, you know, nearly swamps stupid boat. And there's, you know debrief with Arada, debrief with Rathi, debrief with Tiago.
00:34:13
Speaker
And there were a couple lines I wanted to highlight from its debrief, a couple of debriefs. Yeah. which was with Arada, where, because Arada comes up and basically is like, did I kill him?
00:34:26
Speaker
Even though she took the weapons course, even though like she was willing to shoot this guy, she still doesn't want to have killed him. And it it tells her, you know,
00:34:37
Speaker
if If his, you know, people treat him, he might be okay. You know, and says, I lie to humans a lot, but not to Arata. Not about this. Yeah. It cares about her.
00:34:50
Speaker
And she even says, you trying to make me feel better? And says, i would never try to make you feel better. You know what I'm like. Her expression had turned all melty and sentimental. No hugging, I warned her.
00:35:01
Speaker
It was in our contract. Yeah. Do you need emotional support? Do you want me to call someone? Which is a translation, please go hug your wife and leave me out of it. Thank you. good. But you know, she's got to try. She's got to unleash those nuclear level puppy dog eyes.
00:35:18
Speaker
Maybe, maybe. the Not that we encourage pushing against people's very clearly contractually outlined boundaries, but it is still very cute.
00:35:30
Speaker
Mm hmm. And then, it you know, it talks to Rati and Rati's like, well, you know, you did your best sort of thing. And Murtabot's like, Rati doesn't know how much I fuck people up. And I'm going to keep it that way because I want to preserve his glorious puppy dog innocence.
00:35:48
Speaker
Mm hmm. And Tiago comes up but doesn't, like, apologize. This is sort of the, we see again, the little, like, heads butting. Because Tiago got Murderbot shot.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah. By explicitly ignoring the security protocols that were established and that apparently everyone agreed to. In advance, in all caps.
00:36:12
Speaker
Well, and the first thing he asks is because he eventually does say like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get you shot. But the first thing he he says is, did you kill them? Which immediately shuts Sec Unit down.
00:36:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Because Sekhina, that whole previous chapter, you know, yeah, it was commenting a lot about how like Arada would be sad, but also it's like, you know, I don't want to care about Tiago's opinion, but I do actually care about Tiago's opinion and I'm trying not to hurt these people.
00:36:40
Speaker
And it just shuts it down and basically is like, you know, if you want to think I'm the monster, I'm a monster, you can think I'm a monster and go fuck yourself. Yeah. Basically. Like, i' you know I'm not going to dissuade you. And that's if you know if you want to think I'm the monster, that I'll be that monster.
00:36:58
Speaker
But back to preservation and the art festival slash conference slash religious observance. Which sounds really lovely. It sounds like busy, but well managed. There's a designated quiet area for people who are camping and actually want to sleep.
00:37:14
Speaker
There's a designated loud area for people who want a party. And it even has a magical sci-fi sound buffer so they can just have fun doing their thing. There's little go-karts for everyone.
00:37:26
Speaker
People have little sparkler toys and colored powders. And there's nice serene floating lights. It sounds awesome. This sounds like a very cool performance slash conference slash religious observance.
00:37:37
Speaker
I'd go to it. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like fun. But midway through one of the musicals, Mensa asks it to come get her and bring her home. And it's like, that's weird and possibly bad.
00:37:49
Speaker
And her insistence is, oh, I'm just tired. And it shows up and Mensa's mid panic attack slash PTSD flashback slash flare. Like, that's that's the issue here is...
00:38:03
Speaker
You know, like sec unit notices something's wrong. Two, I think we get we get a little more on Farai here, because Tiago's the one pushing Mensa's buttons here and being like, you need to talk to us.
00:38:17
Speaker
And Farai literally says, Tiago, no, she asks for space. You need to give that to her. She smiled at me politely. I never knew how to react to that. She leaned into Mensa to kiss her and said, we'll see you at the house.
00:38:31
Speaker
Farai also later on, there's another, again, jumping around on the timeline. Farai, when she first meets Murderbot, asks yeah what Murderbot's relationship with Mensa is.
00:38:43
Speaker
And Murderbot's answer is, I'm her sec unit. And Farai goes, what does that mean? And Murderbot's basically like, fuck if I know. i would I would love to know. If you figure it out, tell me.
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah, I also had highlighted that line because I don't know what information she was looking for. What kind of answer... Did she like what was the information to be gained from that question? It's a really interesting question.
00:39:11
Speaker
And yeah that is sort of the central tension of Murderbot and Mensah's whole relationship. So there's a lot there. But why does Farai want to know why is that the question that she's choosing to ask?
00:39:23
Speaker
I think what is what she's trying to get is, are you trauma bonded to my wife slash are you trying to take advantage of the fact that she's had trauma?
00:39:35
Speaker
Are you trying to hurt her or have you unhealthily imprinted on her? And Sec Unit's answer basically tells her no to all those questions. And Fry's like, all right, cool.
00:39:47
Speaker
You're not going to hurt my wife. That's what I care about. Yeah. And anything else is between you and her. That is, you know, she's doing her due diligence and we appreciate that. Yeah. You know, you got to protect the people you love.
00:39:59
Speaker
And sometimes you got to let them deal with their shit on their own. I also love, you know, obviously the I'm Her Sec unit is kind of an evasion of the question.
00:40:10
Speaker
But, you know, as people who love a non-normative relationship structure, I also love that just being an answer I'm her sec unit. Our relationship is sec unit and client, clearly. What is there to understand?
00:40:22
Speaker
I had a job here. I get paid in hard currency cards and everything. Exactly. Which my other thought with that is we know how preservation thinks about currency. And at the moment, how much use Murderbot has for currency.
00:40:37
Speaker
it's It's basically meaningless. yeah It's basically monopoly money. ah You want hard currency? Okay. Yeah, but it means something to Murderbot.
00:40:49
Speaker
And so, you know, I think Mensa as head of the Preservation Council and the rest of the Preservation Council are kind of like, well, yeah, sure. Fuck it. Yeah, because it's not getting paid in company script. It could at any time leave with an accumulation of money that it's gotten in fair exchange for its work.
00:41:10
Speaker
And it always has that to fall back on, which, you know, it may in the future need to do. But it's another symbol of its free will, basically.
00:41:23
Speaker
With this conversation, i have a lot of questions about Tiago and his relationship to Mensa and the rest of the family. Because we don't meet Mensa's brother anywhere here.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah. So like, and Tiago is Mensah's brother's husband. And Tiago seems to be the one who's the most vocally like, hey, you need to talk to us. You need to figure this out. Like, what's going on here?
00:41:55
Speaker
You know, Farai and Taino are clearly worried about their wife, but they're not pushing her. In the way that Tiago is. Clearly the fact that Mensa's brother is not here. Like, he's also not pushing her.
00:42:10
Speaker
So, you know, what the fuck's Tiago's deal? Yeah, he definitely... seems a bit insecure about definitely about Murderbot. I think that, you know, we see it explicitly that he feels like Mensa insisting on Murderbot's presence on the survey specifically is implying that he can't take care of his own niece and that, you know, he needs a sec unit to babysit him or whatever and so he feels threatened by that but I think potentially also in general he may feel a little bit on the outside of the family structure I am casting my mind all the way back to like a sophomore year gender studies lecture where we were talking about aunts and gender roles and family dynamic and like the aunt as this symbolic outsider who like
00:43:02
Speaker
doesn't fully have the mother's power and authority and respect and so is always being a little bit underhanded so like in Medio you have a lot of like you know evil aunts sketchy aunties like there's a lot of weird power play stuff and insecurity in media about aunts and uncles specifically fascinating i wish i remembered more of it but there may be some of that there that because he's not part of this immediate family unit you know he's not the spouse he's not one of the kids he's the brother-in-law and he and menza obviously have a very close relationship
00:43:36
Speaker
But he may, and this is just wild spitballing. This is not anywhere in the text. This just my brain. let's go He may be trying to compensate for that insecurity that he feels by inserting himself more aggressively than he needs to, to be like, I'm also part of this. I am here. i am involved.
00:43:58
Speaker
And worrying that maybe if he doesn't do that, he'll he might lose some closeness or standing in Mensa's eyes or something. it's It seems completely unnecessary because everyone around him is like, dude, just give her her space. She will be okay.
00:44:13
Speaker
So that's my thought, but that is also based on nothing. several chapters down the line he mentions being friends with Tano when they were both young and like going to school together and so it's possible maybe they're all old college friends or something too like this that's a distinct possibility is they all knew each other growing up yeah so but yeah it's it's
00:44:42
Speaker
Reading later on, I was trying to remember, like, what the fuck is his relationship to all of them? Like, he's not married to Mensa. Is he Taino's brother? Is he Mensa's brother? And then went back and read the first page and was like, oh, no, wait, he's Mensa's brother-in-law, which makes it weirder that he is so invested to me all of this.
00:45:03
Speaker
I like the old college friends angle, too, because then especially that kind of meshes completely With the insecurity angle of now the college friends have gone on and formed this unit that he's not part of.
00:45:17
Speaker
there could be There could be juicy things there. There is the other piece where Murderbot's also wondering if it's if the issue is it specifically.
00:45:31
Speaker
Not like sec units in general, Murderbot specifically. Yeah. I think if I'd been a normal bot or even in like a normal sec unit just off inventory, naive and not knowing anything about how to get along in the human world or whatever, like the way humans would write it for the media, basically it would have been okay.
00:45:51
Speaker
But I wasn't like that. I was me. Murderbot. So instead of of Mensa having a poor pet bot like Mickey or a sad bot human construct that needed someone to help it, she had me.
00:46:04
Speaker
Which, again, i was having some trans thoughts about. do tell. so I'm a butch trans femme.
00:46:17
Speaker
I present very mask. I don't adjust my voice a lot. I, you know, occasionally will dress femme, but not always.
00:46:30
Speaker
and I know for a fact that that like bothers cis people. Like that is not palatable to them. you know I know for a fact that like that leaves them so struggling to be like, but are you really a woman?
00:46:51
Speaker
And I'm like, well, first of all, you're not nearly you're not nearly at the right level of ah queerness to ah understand the answer to that question. But um it's, yeah, it's it's really, really obvious that when cis people look at you and don't fully see you as your gender.
00:47:17
Speaker
Like it's, it's something I can tell basically within seconds of talking to someone. Yeah. And even, even people who like profess to be like friendly or accepting, like it's really obvious and, you know, and I'm not,
00:47:34
Speaker
the only one. I hang out with a lot of trans people who are, you know, who are non-binary, who, you know, might not have changed anything about their presentation, or who might change one thing, or, you know, who change a couple of things and then don't change the pronouns or name that they use at work, but they change it everywhere else. Like, and it bothers people.
00:47:58
Speaker
cis people and especially cishet people to no end. Basically that they can't figure out how to categorize us nice and neatly. We are not the way, you know, even, even the liberal accepting cis folks who have done some basic education on trans folks, they don't know what to make of us.
00:48:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm. you know And fuck, even other queer people, too. So, yeah, it's this was definitely a, like, to me, it was a, oh, they understand the basic concept of what it means to be non-binary, but they're not actually understanding it.
00:48:46
Speaker
And that's, you know, fair. It's real. Some some of this shit it that goes on in our brains is hard to understand if you can't experience it.
00:49:00
Speaker
And yet. To steal line from the book after Murderbot says the thing about, you know, She had me. and Dr. Bardwatch is responding to that.
00:49:12
Speaker
I wish I thought you were wrong. same Same sentiment. Yeah.
00:49:21
Speaker
But we get a further flashback to talk about Amina. Yes! Oh, Amina, love you so much. And your toxic older boyfriend. Yeah.
00:49:36
Speaker
She's trying to have an illicit rendezvous with a boy she thinks is her age, but he's actually a 30-year-old man. yeah And he is just, Murderbot has a full dossier on this man. It is listing all of the things. You know, he said that his age was comparable to hers, which is just below the legal, you know, local standard for adults.
00:49:58
Speaker
um But he never talks to her when her friends or family are around. He gets her to take intoxicants that he himself doesn't take. He's like listing step by step every single thing. like yeah stared at her secondary secondary sexual characteristics when her attention was elsewhere.
00:50:13
Speaker
A physical scan and his publicly available dossier it said that he was 12 preservation standard years older than what he had told her.
00:50:23
Speaker
you know, and I just had a bad feeling about the little shit. Yeah. And so, you know, he, this, this man tries to lure Amina out to some secluded place to meet some friends quote-unquote who are not there and he's obviously trying to get her drunk and probably take advantage of her so murder pot does the where have you been young lady these the they into the house and spy shit yeah turn on the light and it's just standing there in the middle of the room he screamed yes it was hilarious
00:51:02
Speaker
It sends the guy packing. He runs away. And Amina is fucking pissed. Which, if I was her, I would be pissed too. Because because she Go for it.
00:51:14
Speaker
Well, she didn't know that Murderbot was watching her, first of all. And she makes... A fair argument that, in her words, i don't fuck around, said, you know, I can take care of myself.
00:51:30
Speaker
I have access to the feed if I needed to call for help. I think that I can reasonably assess the situation. You know, he wasn't going to get me to do anything I didn't want to do I'm just a teen and I wanted to hook up with this older guy. Sue me.
00:51:44
Speaker
Yeah, she basically was like, she was like, yeah, I was aware he wasn't telling me everything. I didn't give a shit. Yeah, like, I'm not stupid. I just wanted to do this for fun and me time.
00:51:57
Speaker
And you're not going to tell my parents, right? But luckily, if there's one thing Murderbot understands, it is proprietary data. ah Which is such a good way of describing that. I love that so much. Yeah.
00:52:10
Speaker
But it was such a fun, i mean, i feel bad for Amina, but it was a really fun insight into her personality. She's definitely Mensa's daughter with just the ultimate confidence, pulling it together very quickly. She's still a teen and she's still seething, but she's definitely trying to channel some of that authority and saying, no, I know what I'm doing. You're the one who's being unreasonable. It's just, I love her.
00:52:35
Speaker
Unfortunately, this does not do a whole lot for her. Rapport with Murderbot. And so she's not thrilled to be stuck on a survey with it. No. and And because at the end when they're sort of having this argument, I think they're having two separate conversations.
00:52:52
Speaker
Mm hmm. You know, she thinks it's chastising her for going out and, you know, being a teen. hmm. She thinks it's it's basically being like, you're too young to do this. You don't know what you're doing.
00:53:06
Speaker
and it's like, no, you're just not being careful enough. Yeah. And it's saying, you know, this might have been perfectly fine decision for you to make a year ago.
00:53:17
Speaker
Preservation is a very safe place. All the stuff you said about how you have the feed and you're smart, all of that stuff is true. And in the past, that might have been enough. But now things have changed. Your mother is a planetary leader.
00:53:29
Speaker
i don't think Amina knows that she was kidnapped, but, you know, Murtaba says, you know, the threat to her safety And by extension, your safety is now very high because of things that have happened.
00:53:39
Speaker
And so you just have to be more careful. It's the reality of your situation. This is a strange man you didn't know who found you in a crowded place and got you alone to a secondary location.
00:53:52
Speaker
That's just not the kind of thing that you can afford to do. And also, we learn here, and it's not telling Amina about this, obviously, but it we learn that Mensah also was the victim of an attempted assassination by Grey Chris. Grey Chris sent agents to kill her actively on preservation.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yeah. Which is not a story we have quite yet. The other piece from this, which we'll discuss I want to discuss a little more in a bit, is the way mean Amina refers to Mensa.
00:54:30
Speaker
do you want to just do that now, or did you have things to... interweave with that. Fuck it. Yeah. Let's do second mom. Yeah. We need, we need to talk about second mom. I think that you have a lot more to say on this than I do.
00:54:45
Speaker
So maybe I'll just say my quick piece about second mom and then just set you free by all means. So as we know, I work in childcare.
00:54:56
Speaker
I interact with a lot of families. I interact with more families with children than the average person probably does. I interact with a great proportion of those are queer families.
00:55:10
Speaker
No one, no one says second mom. No one, no one numbers their parents. That is simply not a thing. There is one family that I know who has mugs that say dad number one and dad number two as a joke.
00:55:28
Speaker
It's, it just says those on the mugs and those words have never crossed their lips. That is simply not a thing that anyone in any queer family would say.
00:55:40
Speaker
so Martha, as much as we give you credit for having shocking insight into queer experiences, you fumbled this one, you fumbled it so bad. Yeah. And the, and just, you know, the queer normative world, incredible.
00:55:56
Speaker
i I have many, many questions. the The halfway decent in-universe explanation that I can come up with for this isn't is that they are not actually speaking the same language.
00:56:10
Speaker
o that's biting. We've mentioned that like there's translations happening, and maybe Murderbot typically technically speaks a corporation standard language, and Mina's speaking ah preservation language.
00:56:28
Speaker
And whatever term she uses for Mensa, the corporate language translates it as second mom. That is the only possible, i feel like in universe explanation that makes sense.
00:56:44
Speaker
That is a very clever one. But unfortunately, that's not implied by the text at all. You know, whenever Murtabot talks about like facility systems or or hub system rendering translations, it does not mention that it's doing anything different from preservation.
00:57:02
Speaker
Yeah. So unfortunately, like that one doesn't really hold water. we We've talked about this before between ourselves. First of all, how would you raise a child to call someone second mom?
00:57:14
Speaker
One, it's not convenient to say. to babies can't say that. um The reason most languages around the world, the word for mother is, you know, mama, ama, aba. it's it's Those are easy words, like easy sounds for a baby to make.
00:57:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. With my sapphic families, it's been like mom and mommy, mommy and mama, or they'll have some other silly made up baby name that they call one of the parents. I also have questions about reproduction.
00:57:49
Speaker
hmm. You know, what are the implications for biology? What does this mean to call someone second mom? Does that mean Farai is first mom?
00:58:00
Speaker
Or is Farai just mom? m You know, what does Amina call Tano? Who does this imply? This sort of implies that like, maybe Farai was the one that carried Amina.
00:58:16
Speaker
We also don't know shit about Tainer's biology. We also actually technically don't know shit about Farai or Mensa's biology. There is nothing in the text that says they're cis. Literally nothing.
00:58:29
Speaker
Who contributed to the kids' biology? Who carried the other kids? Did all three contribute? We have a line way back in All Systems Red about the secondary donor for her implanted baby. yeah yes exactly.
00:58:45
Speaker
Yes. ah The colony solicitor, the secondary donor for the colony coloniny solicitor's implanted baby. Is that it? Yes. The colony solicitor killed or was framed for killing the terraforming supervisor who was the secondary donor for her implanted baby.
00:58:59
Speaker
Right. So it primary is there a primary donor? Like, what does that all mean? You know, to do we have to have, quote unquote, naturally produced complementary gametes? Right.
00:59:14
Speaker
Do we have to have a sperm and an egg cell that were you know produced from ovaries and and testes? like Is that how we're creating humans in this world?
00:59:27
Speaker
Can we induce meiosis from stem cells or somatic cells to produce the gametes we want regardless of the biology or you know the... the ah gamete production of the other partners?
00:59:40
Speaker
What does IVF look like and in Prezox? We know that there's one kid who looks almost exactly like Mensa, um who doesn't even have a name. We know that Amina shares some resemblance to Mensa.
00:59:54
Speaker
I think that's mentioned at some point. There's also the other piece, our thoughts of being second mom. Is Mensa second mom to all the kids?
01:00:05
Speaker
o It also, you know, it sort of suggests that Mensa is not the birthing parent, but also Amina is expressly referred to as Mensa's offspring, which is a term that suggests a biological relation.
01:00:17
Speaker
And Murderbot is nothing if not super fucking literal all the time. So what does this mean? So, you know, are all seven kids biologically Mensa and Tano and Farise or some combination thereof?
01:00:35
Speaker
You know, are some adopted? What does this all what, you know, obviously, we know Murderbot doesn't give a single flying fuck about their family structure. However, as previously established, we do.
01:00:47
Speaker
Also, seven kids is a lie. Even if you have three parents and a wonderful, supportive community and all the research resources you need, holy shit, seven kids.
01:00:59
Speaker
I mean, I guess technically speaking, we're not 100% sure that all seven are theirs. we know Because we know from All Systems Red, we know that Mensa had several kids.
01:01:11
Speaker
And we know that she lives on a farm with her sister and brother and Tano and Farai and all of their kids and partners. And that's that's what we know.
01:01:24
Speaker
So we don't necessarily know that the seven kids that Murtabot refers to, are are what they all Mensa and Tano and Farai's, or are they Mensa and Tano and Farai's plus several cousins?
01:01:37
Speaker
That also makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So we don't we don't know what the the the whole family structure looks like. Again, because Murderbot doesn't give a shit. Other pieces, what's everyone's surname?
01:01:49
Speaker
I wonder because, you know. Do they have names on preservation? Well, because Ida Mensa is her full name, but everyone else seems to call, like, everyone's, I don't know if anybody actually calls her Mensa.
01:02:01
Speaker
to her face i don't know if that ever happens i feel like in the short story we read the other week i feel like she was called ida yeah i think so but everyone else gets referred to like you know because we have dr mensa but then we also have dr tiago dr ratti dr oversey dr arada but we know that like they expressly get referred to by those names So, you know, are those first names? Are those surnames? Are those some sort of cult? Like, we don't know naming conventions in preservation either.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yeah. Again, whole questions about family and how it's how it all comes together in preservation. Anyway, that's the end of my second mom rant. We'll get more on this later.
01:02:51
Speaker
Speaking of Mensa, I would love to transition to her conversation with Murderbot after it extracts her from her panic attack episode because I have a lot to say about it.
01:03:04
Speaker
Please. So I guess I want to start with the parallels between what Mensa and Murderbot both need in order to heal from their various traumas and experiences and how those things are connected.
01:03:23
Speaker
So we know from this book and also just from past context in the books in general, that they are both refusing trauma treatments.
01:03:36
Speaker
Murderbot has been just in general and specifically on the page in this book after it gets healed in the med bay. It says the med system tried to cycle into the therapy and post-treatment options, and I stopped it and climbed off the platform.
01:03:49
Speaker
But they both have really different reasons for not pursuing the options that are currently available to them. So Mensa is afraid of feeling weak and afraid of facing the reality of what's happened to her. So there's just like the just general fear of reliving those scary experiences and also the existential threat to her personality. She's a planetary leader. She has to be calm. She has to be collected for everyone at all times. She's a mom. You know, she has to keep her shit under control and not being under control is very scary for her.
01:04:26
Speaker
And she is using being a workaholic, being a planetary leader as an excuse to just never make time in her schedule never explicitly explain that she hasn't gotten trauma treatment. She'll let people believe that she has because that's convenient.
01:04:41
Speaker
But then also because she's a planetary leader, if word of the assassination attempts and the kidnapping gets out, that then could put a lot of people in more danger.
01:04:52
Speaker
I didn't write down specifically the way that Murderbot explains it, but there was something about like preservation specifically deliberately kept... the whole kidnapping hush hush and there was a reason for it that like if it got out it would be very bad but for mensa ultimately getting they refer to it as the trauma treatment as if it's one discreet thing you know it's a series of appointments but it's one program we can call it therapy we can call it the trauma treatment the book calls the trauma treatment for her that is what she needs
01:05:24
Speaker
No amount of love and support from her friends and family or protection from Murderbot is going to solve her underlying problem. And we have no reason not to believe that the treatment will help her.
01:05:37
Speaker
It is made by humans, for humans. Preservation is very good at helping people. This seems like something that she needs to do, but she needs to kind of get out of her own way. And her current state is so bad that even Murderbot is asking her what's wrong, which is, you know, that it's gotten really bad when Murderbot is like hyping itself up to be like, okay, humans ask each other how they're doing all the time.
01:05:58
Speaker
can do this. can do this. Yeah, I think there is the there is, I suppose, another concern because she does mention that like nobody else in preservation really has experience with the corporation RIMP.
01:06:13
Speaker
And so I can see how she'd even sort of extrapolate that like feeling out towards, you know, perhaps the therapists who work in trauma recovery being like, you know, even they can't help me because they have no experience with the corporation room.
01:06:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that that's really fair. I mean, just connecting it to my own unrelated experience, but just, you know, neurons connecting in my brain. We're queer. I'm queer.
01:06:41
Speaker
ah One of the reasons that I really didn't vibe with my last therapist was because she was straight and cis. And I was like, I really need someone who can understand me on this level in order to feel like I'm being helped. So like, yeah, I think if there's like a central aspect of your experience of the world,
01:06:59
Speaker
that your therapist can't understand, like, I think it's reasonable to assume they might not be able to help you in the way that you need. I have had a lot of therapists in my life. And my current one is also a queer non-binary relationship anarchist.
01:07:15
Speaker
And they're the best goddamn therapist I've ever had. We love you. If they have any clones. one of One of our dear, dear friends is a therapist. And I'm like, goddammit.
01:07:29
Speaker
I wish that there was just another one of you that could be my therapist without a conflict of interest. I just need you copy and paste it into someone else. But yeah, so that's sort of Mensa's situation.
01:07:42
Speaker
And then we've got Murderbot, who likes to avoid feelings. We know this. Mm-hmm. But also, as we've established in the other books, human-centered emotional approaches are completely unhelpful to it.
01:07:58
Speaker
So in the same way that Mensa needs someone who understands Corporation RIM, no human trauma protocol is going to be helpful to SecUnit. It is just operating on a completely different set of parameters.
01:08:12
Speaker
And also, though, it also refuses to try because it wants to hold itself completely separate yeah from humans and think that it has nothing in common. Well, yeah, that and that's the avoiding feelings part. It is right avoiding the reality that maybe I do have something in common with humans. Maybe there is something that I could get out of this, but I'm not going to touch that feeling with a 10-foot pole.
01:08:38
Speaker
But it is getting something out of talking to Bardwaj and helping her with her documentary. And it's in one of those conversations where it's helping her with her research.
01:08:50
Speaker
In one of those conversations, they're talking about why Tiago doesn't like it. And Murderbot saying, you know, it's not a fear of sec units, it's me. And Bardwaj saying, yeah I think you're probably right.
01:09:02
Speaker
It is getting... a therapeutic benefit from those conversations. And it knows that, and Bardwaj knows that. And I think out of respect for Murderbot's feelings of dignity, they're just not going to explicitly acknowledge it. They're just going to keep doing what works for them.
01:09:20
Speaker
But it is finding finding a way to make things work. And so then thinking about both of them together, and this is where it gets... juicy and fascinating to me anyways is please Mensa's dependence on Murderbot and the way that she talks about it in this scene I went through several phases of for reactions to it on this reread.
01:09:50
Speaker
and The first thing I thought was, wow, I've never seen a scene like this with somebody going, I think I'm too emotionally dependent on you and it's not fair to you. Like this sounds very weird and healthy.
01:10:02
Speaker
Specifically what she says, and it's good to just have this quote for context. I hate feeling so weak. I just need to stop and I need to stop leaning on you. It's not fair to you.
01:10:13
Speaker
We need to be apart so I can stand on my own feet again. I didn't think she was wrong, but I still wasn't used to things that were unfair to me being a major point of consideration for humans.
01:10:24
Speaker
It also sounded vaguely like the breakup part of the romance scenes on shows I watched, most of which I usually skimmed over. I said, it's not me, it's you.
01:10:35
Speaker
And that is very, very funny. And then also... clicked in my brain to think, oh, actually, there are tons of scenes like this, especially as ah known monster fucker who reads a lot of paranormal romance or romances with a significant amount power discrepancy between the two parties where one of them is much older. One of them's a billionaire. One of them's immortal. One of them's a dragon. Like who cares? There's like some crazy difference between them.
01:11:07
Speaker
There is. And really, honestly, I think the easiest touch point for this is Twilight because that's a major plot point, but it illustrates it very well.
01:11:18
Speaker
And usually The way that that dynamic plays out is that it's always the more powerful party. So the the vampire, the dragon, the billionaire, whatever.
01:11:33
Speaker
Saying something like, I'm a monster. I'm corrupting you. I'm too dependent on your pure innocence and you should live without me because it's better for you. I know best and I can decide the way that you should live your life.
01:11:47
Speaker
And then the less powerful party making a sad face. I'm going, fuck you. I can make my own choices. I choose to be with you. Honestly, Amina trying to chase her older boyfriend. Like, no, I choose this older boyfriend. this is I'm allowed to make this choice. have free will.
01:12:04
Speaker
But this is a situation where that dynamic is flipped. Because Mensa is the one who's looking out for Murderbot. And instead of in like your Twilight situation where that whole, I'm a monster, you could never love me. That's a mindfuck to make the person more emotionally dependent on them. And then it's just a whole whirlwind of shit.
01:12:25
Speaker
This is not that. She's right. It is unfair. And Murderbot agrees. Because again, in these like, you know, more typical... power dynamic breakup scenes, there's always like a, no, you're wrong.
01:12:40
Speaker
You don't understand. i do love you. Bird Boss going, no, you are correct. This is unfair to me. And I still care about you. But I recognize that this is not helping you.
01:12:54
Speaker
It's putting me in a weird position. I've never seen a scene play out that way before. Yeah, that's that's fair. That's my rant. It's really fascinating.
01:13:05
Speaker
No, it's a good one. i like it. i do question though, is Mensa actually the less powerful one here? Well, she is Murderbot's owner. I'm just thinking more in terms of like, you know, Murderbot has guns in its arms.
01:13:18
Speaker
But I mean, we have spent a lot of previous episodes talking about the fact that she does have very real power over Murderbot, despite her good intentions and despite how she's trying to get that changed.
01:13:30
Speaker
That is also a very good point. I think I was thinking more on like the human non-human axis. But yes, you are also very correct. but yeah But in this case, even though Murderbot is physically more powerful, but that doesn't mean that like Mensa isn't also powerful, you know fits the like high-powered executive, but still tortured...
01:13:57
Speaker
But yeah, i feel like a lot of those scenes are so sometimes even the non-human going, you're too dependent on me and I can't i can't allow that because you should live your own life.
01:14:08
Speaker
And Mensa here being like, no, actually, like I'm dependent on you. isn' That's the issue. um No, you're you're absolutely right. That's a really interesting adaptation of that trope.
01:14:24
Speaker
And I do love that Murderbot just puts the little button on it with the little twist. It's not me, it's you. That's cute. i also I also like the acknowledgement of this sort of non-normative relationship being like, yes, this sounds like romance.
01:14:42
Speaker
But it's explicitly not. Yeah. There are still intense feelings about this relationship. But this isn't a romantic relationship. But that doesn't mean that the intense feelings around this relationship are any less real or affect the people in it any differently.
01:15:01
Speaker
It reminds me of all the stuff that we said about the Rapport short story in the short stories episode, which if you haven't listened, go back and listen. That's a very fun one. But, you know, talking about using the emotional beats and the expected...
01:15:18
Speaker
conversational flow things that we would see in a romantic dynamic helping to sort of because there's like two aspects to it and I'm just trying to galaxy brain explain thoughts on relationships as they're occurring to me and you know it'll come out as clearly as it comes out it's fine whatever I edit this podcast I'll make myself sound smart but there's like two parts of that that I'm now thinking about right the first being you know, in a platonic relationship, you can still feel these same feelings. Like, it's not necessarily that there is a romantic flavor and a platonic flavor of codependence. It's just all the same. And breaking down that artificial distinction is a helpful exercise.
01:16:09
Speaker
But then also... Using the familiar structure of like a romantic breakup scene also helps translate those feelings a little bit.
01:16:21
Speaker
If you maybe haven't spent a lot of time reflecting on the deep and profound nature of platonic relationships, being able to see, oh, this is similar to ah dynamic that I'm used to seeing. This is a touch point that I can understand now that I see this sec unit client relationship kind of contrasted with a romantic relationship it makes it easier for me as a reader to understand the depth and intensity of what's going on here even though it's not the same I think it's very skillfully done and I like it a lot yes listen Martha Wells hits honestly more often than she misses yeah and I mean the second mom thing we're never gonna let that go but nobody's perfect nobody's nerfect
01:17:07
Speaker
She doesn't have some queer person tied up in her basement that she's torturing information out of. Although I'm sure you could find one that would be into that. I'm sure.
01:17:19
Speaker
And on that note, do we want to hit chapter three? Yes, i don't have a hell of lot to say about chapter three. no it same. It brings us back into the present in the timeline because lest we forget, all of that shit was a flashback.
01:17:33
Speaker
That whole chapter was basically a flashback. rati tries to give murderbot a pep talk which is very cute oversay thanks it for helping her wifey feel confident then a potential hostile appears there's shots fired there's ship to ship combat there's a boarding attempt imminent the comms and feet are down there's general chaos no one can find amina and there's another person uh conti is that their name conti i think yeah And that's bad because there's a ticking clock before another part of the facility jettisons away.
01:18:09
Speaker
Murderbot to the rescue, but not quite in time. And then it's stuck on the wrong side of a hatch with Amina and Conti. And they all get evac suits and have to go out the airlock. Conti gets away, I think. but Conti gets away?
01:18:22
Speaker
I thought it was... Conti gets away. i just read it I just read it. Oh, yeah. No, no, she does. She gets through the hatch and then it's just Murderbot and Amina. I was not clear... What part of the facility was where and like where they are located at the end of the chapter?
01:18:39
Speaker
Yeah. So that I got. Okay. So they are, so the, the facility itself is capable of getting into orbit.
01:18:50
Speaker
the That's the the research facility that was on the, the ocean planet with the murder boat, murder bots, murder boat. Yeah. But it is not wormhole drive capable.
01:19:03
Speaker
It requires a base ship. And the base ship itself is relatively small, but mostly is made to carry things like the facility. So it's attached to the facility...
01:19:15
Speaker
Which gets shot with a tracking missile. And then the hostile ship locks onto the facility, probably because it's like the larger section of this combined facility-based ship pairing.
01:19:32
Speaker
And that's where the boarding attempt is taking place. But there may be other... You know, there's there's always the possibility that they send, you know, a secondary boarding party in evac suits around to another hatch or whatever.
01:19:49
Speaker
So because the base ship is small and kind of just has like warp drive, basic crew quarters for its five person crew and like one like the area to clamp on and hold the facility, like most of the people from the survey team are in the facility.
01:20:10
Speaker
isnt At which point, when the hostile clamps on, Murderbot's like, get everybody into the main ship, into the base ship, and jettison the facility. And hopefully, the hostile ship will carry the facility off, because they're getting dragged back towards the wormhole.
01:20:30
Speaker
So hopefully the hostile ship will just take the facility and we can escape the base ship. Yeah. Which, like, will be crowded for the next hour and a half until we get picked up. And then everything will be fine.
01:20:44
Speaker
But, you know, there was an issue with the the base ship can't manually jettison the the facility. So they set a countdown from facility control.
01:20:55
Speaker
And then they're holding it from the other side and people are getting up. The artificial gravity is different in the facility than it is in the base ship. And that's where the gravity well section comes in. hmm. So it's like Murderbot sends everybody else out and is just in the facility with Amina when it realizes that the facility's been breached and there's hostiles on board, at which point it tells Oversay and um Arada to shut and jettison the facility now.
01:21:28
Speaker
Which, of course, Arada and Oversay do and don't, because then they go and get in a safe pod rather than on the base ship. which is like an escape pod type thing, I guess.
01:21:39
Speaker
And then Murderbot and Amina have to get into evac suits and hopefully escape out the airlock to get picked up by the base ship's tractor beam. It's setting up mysteries. We don't know who the hostile ship is.
01:21:51
Speaker
We don't know what the motivation is. We don't know what the fuck is going on. And Sam and I are very excited about it. I'm doing little evil tappy fingers because I know. i know. you Well, of course, we've read the whole novel.
01:22:04
Speaker
And, you know, who knows? Maybe our listeners have at this point and you know exactly what's going on. One of the things that we do learn, just again, in-universe things, is we learn there seems to be a difference between the feed, the secured feed, and the calm.
01:22:17
Speaker
Those are three separate methods of communication. Yeah. I think the calm is like talking with your actual yeah voice, like we're talking, like walkie-talkie style.
01:22:29
Speaker
And then the feed is... unclear if it's text or audio format. I know that there's sub vocalizations that humans use to control it. And there's talk about like ah feed voice versus your real voice. So maybe it's audio.
01:22:47
Speaker
Unclear. The feed seems to cover a lot. It seems to be sort of, ah yeah, audiovisual type thing. And I assume there's like, you know, a little like earring thing that you flip down in front of your eyes or something. I don't know.
01:23:02
Speaker
So I had a book growing up that my parents gave me back when I was obsessed with the show on the science behind Battlestar Galactica. and your spouse and I were both very obsessed with Battlestar Galactica for many, many years.
01:23:16
Speaker
But one of the things that they mentioned in the book is they talk about different ways to do sci-fi and explain your sci-fi world.
01:23:29
Speaker
And one of the sort of better ways is to leave things really open-ended. And so there's never really a way to like, Be like, no, wait, there's no way that
Defying Physics in Storytelling and Murderbot's Quirks
01:23:42
Speaker
could do that. That defies the rules of physics or science in this way.
01:23:48
Speaker
and if you never quite define exactly what it is, but like make it clear kind of what it can do, then you have sort of a strong, there there are certain things that like you need to define. And then there's other things where you can kind of let it be that that' slight ambiguity. Mm-hmm.
01:24:09
Speaker
And that's what Martha Wells is doing here. That's, yeah. The feed is whatever you need it to be. I see you have one other the line in your notes, but I'm done.
01:24:19
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, the last thing was just sort of a quick observation. Cause like we said, this chapter is very action packed, but we do get a little bit more about Murderbot's aversion to logos, which all the way back in exit strategy, you may recall, we learned that it has the company logo permanently etched onto its inorganic parts.
01:24:40
Speaker
It has a bad relationship with logos. And it's to the point where it almost doesn't put on a deflection vest for its own safety because it has a logo on it.
01:24:53
Speaker
It does eventually get out of its own way and do that, but That was just another little persistent trauma, persistent issues that Murderbot's dealing with, even in the midst of this life-threatening situation.
01:25:06
Speaker
Saying, oh, but it has a logo on But yeah, other than that, chapter three is really just a setup. It's a cliffhanger. And I am very, very excited to keep going with this book. It's a really fun one.
Murderbot's Personality and Book Pacing
01:25:19
Speaker
So that was a lot. That was just the first three chapters, gang. Yeah. and And there are chapters in this book that like I kind of read through and was like, okay, did anything happen?
01:25:34
Speaker
there the The pacing of this book is is a little rough at times, but I do really enjoy how much we get to learn about Murderbot's personality and its relationships with all these individual characters. Mm-hmm.
01:25:46
Speaker
And I'm really excited to go through the rest of this.
Podcast Engagement and Recommendations
01:25:49
Speaker
So ah if you would like to come along with us for the rest of Network Effect and see whatever the fuck is on the other side of the wormhole and whoever the fuck these hostiles are, you can subscribe to our podcast. You will get notified ah when we drop episodes. We drop episodes every two weeks, every other Tuesday.
01:26:10
Speaker
And in the meantime, you are more than welcome to follow our social media. We are at fanapppod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D, on any social media site we are on.
01:26:23
Speaker
Our most active are Tumblr and Insta, but for relative value of most active. You can always send us an email if you have things you'd like us to see quicker at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com.
01:26:37
Speaker
um That I do actually check every day as opposed to our social media, which I check irregularly. If we have inspired you to read these books or any previous media that we've covered, it would be immensely gratifying. It would make our entire week, probably our entire month, to know that we had gotten someone into some new media. So if this show has inspired you to get into Murderbot or Lord of the Rings or to get another friend on board, please tell us. That would make us very happy.
01:27:06
Speaker
watch k-pop demon hunters or read the romanticies it's on netflix or yeah or read the romanticies that we read yeah we would we would absolutely love to know if you would like a book recommendation if you would like a like some music recs hit us up yeah we're so down if you want the most batshit vegetable shifter romances. I got you.
01:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, Sam reads some slightly more batshit stuff than I do, I'm normal. Thumbs up. I'm very well adjusted. Normal's just setting on a washing machine, bestie.
01:27:48
Speaker
Oh my god. To quote 2013 Tumblr. Labels are for soup cans. Why soups? Okay, my darling soup cans.
01:27:58
Speaker
um Okay. we're losing We're losing the plot. My soups. It's late. It's late. And we love you very dearly and we will see you next time for, God, what's the chapter breakdown? I feel like we should say that now. You are the one who came up with it. So I know i'm looking for it now.
01:28:19
Speaker
I believe next time we are planning to cover chapters four through seven. We're planning on breaking this up into four episodes. So this was chapters one through three. We're planning four through seven next time, eight through 13, and then 14 to the end.
01:28:34
Speaker
So if you are planning on reading along with the podcast, that is your reading schedule. um I'll post that on our social media as well. Enjoy. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time.
01:28:47
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 Bayruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z.
01:29:03
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.