Someone else here was talking about how CombatUnits might struggle with adapting to freedom in an environment that doesn't need (or want) soldiers and it reminded me of something I've been noodling about for a while.
The text isn't exactly clear on what life is like for constructs between deployments. Murderbot describes scenes of hiding its rogue activities from techs, but at least once describes being "woken up" to await new clients as if it had been shut down in the interim. Between the Ganaka Pit incident and its redeployment, it apparently spent huge swaths of time inactive, "dreaming", only being booted back up for analysis of its systems.
Which says to me there's a good chance that they spend a lot of time in some kind of stasis when not in use. And if CombatUnits have clearance to hack other systems like Murderbot describes, there could be even more restrictions on when they're allowed to be active compared to SecUnits or ComfortUnits.
On top of this, it's not like you'd pull out a CombatUnit to go on patrols, or keep watch. They don't stand around and watch humans do human stuff. They don't get bored. You activate them when you need something dead and you need it dead right now.
Instead, they wake up, and they immediately have a mission. They get their intel, they get transported to their destination if they need it. And then its Go Go Go, Kill Kill Kill, that one's running get it quick, All Clear, Mission Complete, Good Bot, Back in Your Box, and then they're out.
And the next time they wake up they have a new mission.
Do they know how long it's been since the last one? Do they have time to think about it before govmod kicks in and puts them back on target? Do they even spend enough time experiencing the world for it to matter to them? Do they have any context at all for their place in the wider universe?
It's like they're living in a plot-light FPS game. The kind where you just fade to black between levels. They get some context for who they're shooting at, but it isn't important. It's all about figuring out how to meet their mission objective; hunting down targets like they're solving a puzzle. And if they fuck up, chances are good they get repaired and they get to try again next time. (Shit, do they even know they can die?) (Do they know other people can die?)
(Do they know where new humans come from?)
And I think about the one interaction we've witnessed with a CombatUnit in the series, where Murderbot asks it what it wants, and it says,
And I think, yeah bud. I bet you fucking do.
You could be kicking so much ass at lazer tag though.
