I'm back into Murderbot, and right now, it's really bothering me how mean the PresAux team are to SecUnit in the show. Keep in mind, I actually did like the show, but it has a sort of "it would be so good if it was good" kind of thing going on. But please try not to take this as Murderbot TV hate.
In the show, the team only gives a brief argument against renting a sec unit. They give it orders (not blaming Ratthi, I don't think he realized that was an order, but I'm pretty sure there are other examples), including using its supposed enslavement to the governor module to hurt it (Gurathin). The only difference between that and what the miners are doing in the prologue is that the miners are doing it for fun, whereas Gurathin is doing it to test the lengths of its obedience. Both instances are torture. They misgender/forcibly gender it (Arada) and use "it" to dehumanize it (Gurathin). They talk about melting it down (Gurathin again, but everyone hears and nobody says anything against him) and leaving it behind (Pin-Lee). They openly distrust it (Gurathin) and repeatedly show that they're afraid it will kill them (mostly Pin-Lee). They ignore its advice (Bharadwaj and Arada right before Hostile One shows up (and I'm pretty sure Ratthi ignores it regarding going into the GrayCris facility, and probably in other fights)) and then blame it for not protecting them better. They sneak off to secret meetings (Gurathin's idea that everyone else went along with) or to do surveying on their own (Mensah and Bharadwaj going off by themselves while it was offline). Also, Gurathin tricks it and violates its mind, though I'm blaming that one on TV!Gurathin being an asshole. You'd think that this would get better at the end after they risk everything to save it, but they brush aside its concerns about its future (you don't need armor), and I'm 90% sure Arada misgenders (genders) it again when it says "We can talk about this" and she says "That's his first one!"
Yes, Gurathin is the biggest , but everyone else gets at least one point against them. Now, Mensah isn't really responsible for any of the microaggressions, and I think she learns from leaving it behind. I never noticed her giving it orders she thinks it has to follow, and she never misgenders it (it's when she called it "it" that I knew the show was going to keep its pronouns). She doesn't have some of the nice moments like telling Ratthi to leave it alone or, more importantly, telling it they won't leave it behind in the ending (which would have worked really well with their reaction to losing it to the company: she promised it something, and she has to carry through). She also throws up and is obviously emotionally affected by killing the other secunit, in contrast to the others cheering when they kill one. That's partly explained by the visceral violence of killing someone with a mining drill held in your bare hands versus the (explicitly compared to) video game violence of crushing someone with a ship, but also it's evidence that Mensah understands that these are people. Book fans complain that she doesn't do enough to earn "favorite human" status, but honestly, in comparison to everyone else, she does.
Now, compare the book. I forget how many times Mensah officially files an objection to renting a secunit, but it's a lot. They always avoid giving it direct orders and Gurathin only briefly (and somewhat jokingly) talks about using eye contact to torture it. They never misgender it (or discuss its pronouns at all) or discuss letting it die. Mensah works with it to make sure everyone is safe and it's available and ready to protect them next time they go anywhere. They do talk about it behind its back, but Mensah uses that to make sure everyone agrees not to push it too hard (which she enforces). Gurathin was doing repairs on it when he found its personal information. They also agree on the plan for tricking GrayCris, instead of it coming up with a stupid plan without telling them. At the end, when it asks for its armor they say they can work on it, and when it asks for its cubicle, they reassure it that it will get repaired when necessary, just with a medbay (like a person). Now, obviously, it doesn't like hearing that it won't be needed for security, but they're also offering it whatever it needs, not brushing it off. Overall, they both treat it and listen to it better, and when it says that was its first experience being part of a team, you actually believe it was part of the team instead of an additional problem they had to deal with.
Now, don't get me started on Sanctuary Moon...
