KasaTheFrog

I want to take some time to talk about my thoughts on the concept behind the cosplay. Since ART‘s physical form is a huge ass spaceship, and I am a mere human my plan was to base the cosplay on what I would imagine a human form feed avatar might look like.

Since the avatar would most probably be in use in teaching and research contexts I tried for go for a vibe of approachable and competent. I tried to capture what a crew uniform could look like and focused on functionality. I leaned into the light blue/turquoise I saw in a lot of fanart for ART to give it a bit of individuality, while still keeping aspects of the dark blue accents described in the books.

My friend JuleVaru helped me with the wig because I had no clue what I was doing. And I am super happy with how it turned out even though I have made some adjustments since then. Mainly thinning out the front bits (they got in the way a lot) and fluffing it out a bit more.

I really wanted to have a psumnt logo specifically for the Perihelion-vessel for the jacket and the top. The center is inspired by the James Webb Telescope with the symbolized orbits of Mihira and New Tideland creating the overall appearance of an eye. It felt appropriate because of its research and its (in my opinion) occasional ominous vibe. I hand embroidered it on the jacket and on a patch for the top and finally painted it to the back of the jacket as well.

Initially I added the glasses for practical reasons (I am very much short sighted and I wanted to wear colored contacts for a not actually human vibe. And prices for colored prescription lenses for one day wear were faaaar too steep for my poor student wallet) but I think they work with the whole research/teaching vibe.

Originally, I also wanted to add a feed interface-ish earring and the applications on the arms as seen on my sketch but I didn't have the time to finish those.

I might add them this year because I plan to continue working on it. Currently I am considering replacing the white top with a dark blue one to balance out the colors better and adding some patches to the jacket (like a proper patch for ART's name).

Hc that its performance reliability always jumps up like half a percent when it stops running the code

Like one day they're having a watch party or something, and ratthi will look over, stare at murderbot for a second, then say in a surprised voice, "oh, i didn't know that secunits' organic parts age the way humans do!"

Murderbot is quiet for a few seconds as it studies itself from one of its drone cameras, sees the fine wrinkles starting to line the skin of its face. Then it says in a wondering voice, "I didn't know that either. We usually don't live long enough to experience significant changes to our appearance."

And then an explosion happens on the display and murderbot goes back to paying attention to its show while all the humans around it stare at each other in abject horror. Arada's on the verge of tears and wants to hug murderbot so badly. Instead, she just hides her face in Overse's shoulder.

I love Miki as a foil to ART. It casts a lot of light on why MB & ART work so well: MB suspects that Miki has been programmed (ie forced by humans) to always answer yes or to behave in a child-like manner. It can't trust Miki's agreeableness or offers of friendship if it's something the humans have made it do.

Then it turns out Miki is Just Like That on its own and… MB still can't trust its offers of friendship, bc "there was a 93% chance Miki wanted to be everyone's friend" (said I think in NE?), meaning Miki didn't actually want to be Murderbot's friend, it didn't know MB at all and was just friendly to everyone. (The Preservation humans fall in this category a little too, especially at first: they're Good People, so they would help Anyone. They're not choosing MB specifically)

All Systems Red

...Mensah had offered to let me hang out in the hub with the humans like I was an actual person or something.

Artificial Condition

Even when I was still in armor, once my PreservationAux clients had seen my human face, they had wanted to treat me like a person.

I told myself I still looked like a SecUnit without armor, hopelessly exposed, but the truth was I did look more human. And now I knew why I hadn’t wanted to do this.

It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person.

Since I wasn’t a person and I didn’t have an employment voucher, I would have to hack my way into one of the supply shuttles …

Rogue Protocol:

You would think the person they knew as a security consultant slamming in and disarming one of them would cause everyone to stop and reassess their priorities in this situation, but oh, you would be wrong.

Exit Strategy

“It’s the first one I saw. When I hacked my governor module and picked up the entertainment feed. It made me feel like a person.”

[...]

A roving drone cam showed me she was frowning. “You are a person.”

Oh, that we can’t talk about. “Not legally.”

Fugitive Telemetry

But I wasn’t a citizen and also technically not actually a person, which made it more difficult.

Network Effect