hangrybookdragon

ASR = All Systems Red

AC = Artificial Condition

RP = Rogue Protocol

ES = Exit Strategy

NE = Network Effect

FT = Fugitive Telemetry

SC = System Collapse

I use 'mb' as shorthand for murderbot

It's mostly ASR, with some NE and FT thrown in, but I put all the abbreviations in case I wind up coming back and putting more citations here

My list is organized according to how I'm writing the paper (all ones about surveillance here, all the ones about contract slavery there, etc.), so the page numbers are not in order, and there might be a repeat or two, but they are in book order. some of them might be repeated bc I had them formatted in lists like "all quotes related to ___) and some quotes relate to multiple things.

if you're looking specifically for gender-related mb quotes, @worldsentwined made a wonderful post collecting them a while back. I also have a few other murderbot posts that have quotes in them that might not be here, including a reblog where a bunch of lovely people added extra citations onto my original post. I hope you find what you're looking for!

All Systems Red

“I had been on contracts where the clients would have told me to put the bleeding human down to go get the stuff.” (15) ASR

“There were groans and general complaining about having to pay high prices for shitty equipment. (I don’t take it personally.)” (31) ASR crossover w slavery

“My education modules were such cheap crap;” (34) ASR

“I’m not refundable.” (49) ASR

“(You had to check everything out and log any problems immediately when you took delivery or the company wasn’t liable.)” (52) ASR

“It was all company equipment though, per contract, and all subject to the same malfunctions as the crap they’d dumped on us.” (58) ASR

““The company could be bribed to conceal the existence of several hundred survey teams on this planet.” Survey teams, whole cities, lost colonies, traveling circuses, as long as they thought they could get away with it. I just didn’t see how they could get away with making a client survey team—two client survey teams—vanish. Or why they’d want to. There were too many bond companies out there, too many competitors. Dead clients were terrible for business. “I don’t think the company would collude with one set of clients to kill two other sets of clients. You purchased a bond agreement that the company would guarantee your safety or pay compensation in the event of your death or injury. Even if the company couldn’t be held liable or partially liable for your deaths, they would still have to make the payment to your heirs. DeltFall was a large operation. The death payout for them alone will be huge.” And the company hated to spend money.” (90) ASR

“The organic parts mostly sleep, but not always. You know something’s happening. They were trying to purge my memory. We’re too expensive to destroy.” (116) ASR

“The company required this as a security feature if you wanted your base to be anywhere without open terrain around it. It cost extra, and if you didn’t want it, it cost even more to guarantee your bond.” (124) ASR

“Okay, the problem is, I’ve mentioned this before, the company is cheap. When it comes to something like a beacon that just has to launch once if there’s an emergency, send a transmission through the wormhole, and then never gets retrieved, they’re very cheap.” (137) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction…. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped.” (139) ASR

“…we’re cheaply produced and we suck. Nobody would hire one of us for non-murdering purposes unless they had to.” (34) ASR

“In a smart world, I should go alone, but with the governor module I had to be within a hundred meters of at least one of the clients at all times, or it would fry me.” (37) ASR

“I walked out a little way, past a couple of the lakes, almost expecting to see something under the surface. Dead bodies, maybe. I’d seen plenty of those (and caused plenty of those) on past contracts, but this one had been dead-body-lacking, so far. It made for a nice change.” (44) ASR

“This is how we fight: throw ourselves at each other and see whose parts give out first.” (69) ASR

““Dr. Mensah,” I said, “this is a violation of security priority and I am contractually obligated to record this for report to the company—” It was in the buffer and the rest of my brain was empty.” (73) ASR

“The DeltFall SecUnits hadn’t been rogues, they had been inserted with combat override modules. The modules allow personal control over a SecUnit, turn it from a mostly autonomous construct into a gun puppet. The feed would be cut off, control would be over the comm, but functionality would depend on how complex the orders were. “Kill the humans” isn’t a complex order.” (75) ASR

““Because if the company wanted to sabotage you, they would have poisoned your supplies using the recycling systems. The company is more likely to kill you by accident.”” (81) ASR

“I said, “I did not hack my governor module to kill my clients. My governor module malfunctioned because the stupid company only buys the cheapest possible components. It malfunctioned and I lost control of my systems and I killed them. The company retrieved me and installed a new governor module. I hacked it so it wouldn’t happen again.” (81) ASR

"“Do they really expect to get away with this?” Ratthi turned to me, like he was expecting an answer.” (105)

““They may believe the company and whoever your beneficiaries are won’t look any further than the rogue SecUnits. But they can’t make two whole survey teams disappear unless their corporate or political entity doesn’t care about them. Does DeltFall’s care? Does yours?” (105) ASR

“Freehold meant it had been terraformed and colonized but wasn’t affiliated with any corporate confederations. Basically freehold generally meant shitshow so I hadn’t been expecting much from them. But they were surprisingly easy to work for.” (26) ASR

“The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company.” (48) ASR

“I had a moment to feel betrayed, which was stupid. Volescu was my client, and I’d saved his life because that was my job, not because I liked him.” (79-80) ASR

“One saw me and Ratthi and said, “Again, this is irregular. Purging the unit’s memory before it changes hands isn’t just a policy, it’s best for the—” (143) ASR

“Maybe it would work out. This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want. Supposed to want.” (147) ASR

“Murderbots aren’t allowed to ride with the humans and I had to have verbal permission to enter. With my cracked governor there was nothing to stop me, but not letting anybody, especially the people who held my contract, know that I was a free agent was kind of important. Like, not having my organic components destroyed and the rest of me cut up for parts important.” (14) ASR

“I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide. HubSystem could log it and it could trigger punishment through the governor module.” (15) ASR

“…if it monitored the governor module and my feed like it was supposed to, it could lead to a lot of awkward questions and me being stripped for parts.” (31) ASR

“I had worked for some contracts that would have kept me standing here the entire day and night cycle, just on the off chance they wanted me to do something and didn’t want to bother using the feed to call me.” (33) ASR

“I don’t know why I was dancing around the word. Maybe because I thought she didn’t want to hear it. She’d just shot a heavily armed SecUnit with a mining drill to get me back; presumably she wanted to keep me.” (76) ASR

“Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.” “It calls itself ‘Murderbot,’” Gurathin said." (82) ASR

“To them, talking to me was like talking to a hopper or a piece of mining equipment.” (127) ASR

“I know I said SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other, but I wished it wasn’t one of the DeltFall units. It was in there somewhere, trapped in its own head, maybe aware, maybe not. Not that it matters. None of us had a choice.” (132) ASR

“Guardian was a nicer word than owner.” (148) ASR

“I’ve purchased your contract.” (145) ASR

“He said, “Good news! Dr. Mensah has permanently bought your contract! You’re coming home with us!” (141) ASR

“I’m off inventory.” They had told me that and maybe it was true.” (145) ASR

“SecSystem records everything, even inside the sleeping cabins, and I see everything.” (30) ASR

“I was supposed to check their personal logs periodically in case they were plotting to defraud the company or murder each other or something…” (57) ASR

“One of the reasons the bond company requires it, besides slapping more expensive markups on their clients, is that I was recording all their conversations all the time, though I wasn’t monitoring anything I didn’t need to do a half-assed version of my job. But the company would access all those recordings and data mine them for anything they could sell. No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.” (27-28) ASR

“Now they knew their murderbot didn’t want to be around them any more than they wanted to be around it. I’d given a tiny piece of myself away. That can’t happen. I have too much to hide, and letting one piece go means the rest isn’t as protected.” (33-34) ASR

“No one would be shooting at me because they didn’t shoot people there. Mensah didn’t need a bodyguard there; nobody did. It sounded like a great place to live, if you were a human or augmented human.” (146) ASR

“If there’s a chance we can save lives, we have to take it,” Pin-Lee agreed.” (57) ASR

“They were the first clients I’d had who hadn’t had any previous experience with SecUnits” (40) ASR

““You have to think of it as a person,” Pin-Lee said to Gurathin.” (95) ASR

“”It is a person,” Arada insisted.” “I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.” “Then stop being mean to it,” Ratthi told him. “That might help.”” (96) ASR

“Overse added, “It doesn’t want to interact with humans. And why should it? You know how constructs are treated, especially in corporate-political environments.”” (107) ASR

“”You know, in Preservation-controlled territory, bots are considered full citizens. A construct would fall under the same category.” He said this in the tone of giving me a hint. Whatever. Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds.” (112) ASR

“Ratthi smiled at the console. “Because Dr. Mensah is our political entity.” He made a little gesture, turning his hand palm up. “We’re from Preservation Alliance, one of the non-corporate system entities. Dr. Mensah is the current admin director on the steering committee. It’s an elected position, with a limited term. But one of the principles of our home is that our admins must also continue their regular work, whatever it is. Her regular work required this survey, so here she is, and here we are.”” (111) ASR

“Ratthi came over to see if I was all right, and I asked him to tell me about Preservation and how Mensah lived there. He said when she wasn’t doing admin work, she lived on a farm outside the capital city, with two marital partners, plus her sister and brother and their three marital partners, and a bunch of relatives and kids who Ratthi had lost count of.” (147) ASR

“Ratthi sighed. “Oh, yes, they know. You would not believe what we had to pay to guarantee the bond on the survey. These corporate arseholes are robbers.”” (112) ASR

““Because the scanners suck corporation balls,” Pin-Lee muttered.” (42) ASR

“Of course I need you. I have no experience in anything like this. None of us do. Sometimes humans can’t help but let emotion bleed through into the feed. She was furious and frightened, not at me, at the people who would do this, kill like this,” (107-108) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction. Also, I really didn’t want them to try to move me because it hurt bad enough the way it was. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped. “You shut the fuck up. We’re not leaving you.”” (139) ASR

"I had flashes off and on. The inside of the little hopper, my humans talking, Arada holding my hand." (140) ASR

“We had a problem at the hatch of the big hopper where Mensah wanted to get in last and I wanted to get in last. As a compromise, I grabbed her around the waist and swung us both up into the hatch as the ramp pulled in after us. I set her on her feet and she said, “Thank you, SecUnit,” while the others stared.” (99) ASR

““I know you’re more comfortable with keeping your helmet opaque, but the situation has changed. We need to see you.”” (103) ASR

““It’s usually better if humans think of me as a robot,” I said.” (103) ASR

““Maybe, under normal circumstances.” She was looking a little off to one side, not trying to make eye contact, which I appreciated. “But this situation is different. It would be better if they could think of you as a person who is trying to help. Because that’s how I think of you.” My insides melted. That’s the only way I could describe it. After a minute, when I had my expression under control, I cleared the face plate and had it and the helmet fold back into my armor. She said, “Thank you,” and I followed her up into the hopper.” (104) ASR

“They were saying things like I didn’t even know it had a face.” (21) ASR

“Arada and Pin-Lee didn’t try to talk to me, and Ratthi actually looked away when I eased past him to get to the cockpit. They were all so careful not to look at me or talk to me directly that as soon as we were in the air I did a quick spot check through HubSystem’s records of their conversations.” (39) ASR

“They had talked it over and all agreed not to “push me any further than I wanted to go” and they were all so nice and it was just excruciating.” (40) ASR

“That was when I realized they weren’t ignoring the possibility of sabotage.” (43) ASR

“This is why I didn’t want to come. I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out DeltFall. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.” (60) ASR

“It was nice having a human smart enough to work with like this.” (67) ASR

“I do a half-assed job sometimes, okay, most of the time, but Pin-Lee had checked, too, and she was thorough.” (71) ASR

“It was starting to occur to me that Dr. Mensah might actually be an intrepid galactic explorer, even if she didn’t look like the ones on the entertainment feed.” (73) ASR

“I hoped they hadn’t been stupid about it, too soft-hearted to kill me.” (77) ASR

“My clients are the best clients.” (78) ASR

“But I think the fact that the Unit has been acting to preserve our lives, to take care of us, while it was a free agent, gives us even more reason to trust it.”” (80) ASR

“Overse sounded mad. “It told us about the combat module, it told us to kill it. Why the hell would it do that if it wanted to hurt us?”” (81) ASR

“Before anyone else could move, Mensah said, calm and even, “SecUnit, I’d appreciate it if you put Gurathin down, please.” She’s a really good commander. I’m going to hack her file and put that in. If she’d gotten angry, shouted, let the others panic, I don’t know what would have happened.” (84-85) ASR

“She continued, “I would like you to remain part of our group, at least until we get off this planet and back to a place of safety. At that point, we can discuss what you’d like to do. But I swear to you, I won’t tell the company, or anyone outside this room, anything about you or the broken module.”” (86) ASR

“Of course she had to say that. What else could she do. I tried to decide whether to believe it or not, or whether it mattered, when I was hit by a wave of I don’t care. And I really didn’t. I said, “Okay.”” (86) ASR

““We have to shut it down, or it’s going to kill us.” Then he winced and looked at me. “Sorry, I meant HubSystem.”” (86-87) ASR

“Then Arada came up and patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry. This must be very upsetting. After what that other Unit did to you . . . Are you all right?” That was too much attention. I turned around and walked into the corner, facing away from them.” (87) ASR

“I should keep my mouth shut, keep them thinking of me as their normal obedient SecUnit, stop reminding them what I was. But I wanted them to be careful.” (92) ASR

““If a strange survey group landed here, all friendly, saying they had just arrived, and oh, we’ve had an equipment failure or our MedSystem’s down and we need help, you would let them in. Even if I told you not to, that it was against company safety protocol, you’d do it.” Not that I’m bitter, or anything. A lot of the company’s rules are stupid or just there to increase profit, but some of them are there for a good reason.” (92-93) ASR

[I cited this whole conversation bc I wasn't sure exactly what bits I wanted to use. apologies for the giant block text.]

“Ratthi’s expression was troubled. “But surely . . . It’s clear you have feelings—”” (54)

“She looked up, frowning. “Ratthi, what are you doing?” Ratthi shifted guiltily. “I know Mensah asked us not to, but—” He waved a hand. “You saw it.” Overse pulled her interface off. “You’re upsetting it,” she said, teeth gritted. “That’s my point!” He gestured in frustration. “The practice is disgusting, it’s horrible, it’s slavery. This is no more a machine than Gurathin is—” Exasperated, Overse said, “And you don’t think it knows that?” I’m supposed to let the clients do and say whatever they want to me and with an intact governor module I wouldn’t have a choice.” (54) ASR

“I’m also not supposed to snitch on clients to anybody except the company, but it was either that or jump out the hatch. I sent the conversation into the feed tagged for Mensah. From the cockpit, she shouted, “Ratthi! We talked about this!” I slid out of the seat and went to the back of the hopper, as far away as I could get, facing the supply lockers and the head. It was a mistake; it wasn’t a normal thing for a SecUnit with an intact governor module to do, but they didn’t notice. “I’ll apologize,” Ratthi was saying. “No, just leave it alone,” Mensah told him. “That would just make it worse,” Overse added.” (55) ASR

Network Effect

“Humans in the Preservation alliance didn't have to sign up for contract labor and get shipped off to mines or whatever for 80 to 90 percent of their lifespans. There was some strange system where they all got their food and shelter and education and medical for free, no matter what job they did.” (35-36) NE

“...it was a natural mistake on Arada’s part. In Preservation culture asking payment for anything considered necessary for living (food, power sources, education, the feed, etc.) was considered outrageous, but asking payment for life-saving help was right up there with cannibalism.” (201) NE

“There were "free" bots wandering around on Preservation, though they had guardians who were technically supposed to keep track of them.” (27) NE

“Plus, it was Preservation and there were no scanning drones, no armed human security, just some on-call human medics with bot assistants and “rangers” who mainly enforced environmental regulations and yelled at humans and augmented humans to get out of the way of the ground vehicles.” (24) NE

"Over the comm loudspeaker, Dr. Ratthi said, 'It is a person!'" (16) NE

“Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about sexual availability and gender presentation, which I didn’t give a damn about.” (13) NE

“If this went wrong I was going to feel really stupid. The Targets would finally show up and be all “What the hell was it trying to do to itself?”“ (305-306) NE

“That’s one of the reasons Me 1.0 misses its armor.” (293) NE

“You and Amena were right. 2.0 was a person. It wasn’t like a baby, but it was a person.” (340) NE

“The damage to its organic tissue and support structure is easily repaired.” (132) NE

“- because it thought you were dead. It was so upset I thought-Oh, hey, you’re here” (227) NE

“Amena’s voice said “No, it doesn’t like to be touched!”“ (335) NE

““No, it says it’s fine,” I heard her relaying to the others on our comm. “Well, yes, it’s furious,”” (12) NE

"It's not aliens, 2.0 said. We knew it wasn't aliens, I told it. It countered, We were seventy-two percent sure it wasn't aliens. That was an outdated assessment but I didn't need to argue with myself right now." (314) NE

Fugitive Telemetry

“Preservation had two economies, one a complicated barter system for planetary residents and one currency-based for visitors and for dealing with other polities. Most of the humans here didn’t really understand how important hard currency was in the Corporation Rim but the council did, and Mensah said the port took in enough in various fees to keep the station from being a drain on the planet’s resources.” (79) FT

“The Preservation Alliance has a weird thing about food and medical care and other thing humans need to survive being free and available anywhere.” (35) FT

“The employment contracts for Preservation citizens were pretty simple, because their planetary legal code had so many in-built protections already. (For example, humans and augmented humans can’t sign away their rights to their labor or bodily autonomy in perpetuity; that’s like, straight-up illegal.)” (12) FT

“Preservation has high safety standards so we passed through two air walls before we got to the cargo ship’s hatch.” (70) FT

“Right now Aylen and the other officers were explaining to their individual Targets what rights they had as detainees in Preservation Alliance territory. (It was a lot of rights. I was pretty sure it was more rights than a human who hadn’t been detained by Station Security had in the Corporation Rim.)” (85-86) FT

“As part of the rights thing, Aylen had told Target Five the scanner would be on, which I thought was playing way too fair,” (89-90) FT

“Station Security was only allowed to keep the Lalow for one Preservation day-cycle before they either had to charge the crew with something or let them go.” (106) FT

“You need a surveillance audit.” (145) “Some of those systems are under privacy lock, we’d need a judge-advocate to release their access records,” (146) FT [these are together bc its a line of dialogue from mb, a huge monologue about what a surveillance audit is, and then Indah's response, which is the thing I care about for my paper]

“Most of the station’s clothing supply came from the planet, where human hand-made clothing and textiles were so popular there was hardly any recycler-produced fabric. (I told you Preservation is weird.)” (22) FT

“The colony ship hadn’t just been left to rot; the humans liked it too much for that…Pieces of clear protective material had been placed over the occasional drawings on the bulkheads, and on the pieces of paper stuck to them and covered with scribbled handwriting and faded print. Feed markers had been installed by Station Historical/Environment Management with translations into Preservation Standard Nomenclature.” (123) FT

“…you’re on a giant spaceship that has been meticulously preserved as a historical artifact. If they still had intact lunch menus from however many years ago, the chances were good they still had the safety equipment.” (125) FT

“Station Security isn’t armed except with those extendable batons (they don’t even deliver shocks, they’re just for hitting/holding off aggressive intoxicated humans) and the officers are only issued energy weapons when there’s actually an energy-weapon-involved emergency.” (72) FT

“…they were here to assess the damage to the transport and try to repair it. (Apparently on Preservation this would be free? Gurathin said it fell under what they called a traveler’s aid rule. In the Corporation Rim, the transport would have had tp sit there damaged and racking up fines until its owner or an owner’s rep arrived.)” (55-56) FT

another "couldn't decide so the whole dang thing is here"