clover

malevolent menagerie

yellows for @clovercow8228 noel for @clovercow8228 + @grayscale-sparks joelthurs for @flying-fangirls

goldcrosses for @bizarreohmart

kayne for @ambrose-d . i GUESS .

thank u all so much for ur requests ^_^ !!!

I'm re-reading Fugitive Telemetry and have some thoughts. On Preservation, when Murderbot meets free bots, it's disdainful of them having names, especially if they're "infantilizing". It practically has a seizure when it meets Preservation's silliest cargo hauler, JollyBaby.

When asked by officer Indah to set a feed ID, it at first refuses, but eventually sets it to SecUnit as a tongue-in-cheek way of giving her what she really wants: for it to disclose what it is, so people will be aware of the "danger" it poses. Murderbot, I think, doesn't actually intend for this to be recognized as a name, but it's what it's been called all its life by clients and it at least means that it doesn't have to pretend to be an augmented human, which it admits is difficult for it.

It never questions the fact that any humans have names- this is simply fact. So why does it find it so difficult to think about itself or other bots sharing their names? I think it's about not wanting to be a pet bot- not stooping to identify yourself in a way that's simple enough for humans to use, unlike a hard feed address. It sees it as demeaning that it or any bot should have to change the way they communicate to suit humans.

Why, then did it bother to choose a name for itself? Beyond that, why does it bother to choose names for other bots it interacts with, notably ART, Transport, and Ship? It sees it as embarrassing that ART's humans have a "cute pet name" for it, even though it refers to it by its own pet name, when surely it was listed in the transit ring as the Perihelion, or it could use ART's hard feed address, as we know ART does for Murderbot. This is definitely some form of endearment, because it never names bots, SecUnits, or CombatUnits that it's fighting. They're always just Hostile or Target, which are less names than categories. I think it's in some way part of the cognitive dissonance that comes with being a construct: simultaneously resenting, even looking down on humans, but finding it natural to communicate in the same ways as them. It does want that human aspect of connection (even if it would never admit that), so it bestows a little humanity on its bot allies in the form of a nickname.

Names are a marker of social status, too.

Consider that we don't know most of the humans' full names — only Dr. Mensah and her families (maybe, if they share her last name).

Anyway, I do have a theory about the way that government name SecUnit gives vehicles cute little nicknames: it's infosec.

but then it spends the rest of the series just using that name casually like a gamer tag while it panics over minor social interactions.

like, it will literally face a horde of corporate hitmen and think: "i am a terrifying security unit, a literal murderbot."

but then a human says "good morning" to it and murderbot is instantly like: "oh god, why are they talking to me? should i pretend my software is updating? i am going to pass out. i wish i was dead so i could finish season 4 of my space drama."