Apr 5
Sonic Universe Restored #96 is now live! Happy Easter! When an unknown threat attacks the Jeweled Scepter shrine, it's up to Bunnie and Blaze to put a stop to it. Plus, an unexpected twist in a journey of self-discovery. Read here
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Sonic Universe Restored #96 is now live! Happy Easter! When an unknown threat attacks the Jeweled Scepter shrine, it's up to Bunnie and Blaze to put a stop to it. Plus, an unexpected twist in a journey of self-discovery. Read here
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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here’s something that surprised me on my all systems red reread: secunit sits down like halfway through the book! page 104, murderbot sits on one of the hopper’s benches.
and the first time i read this book i paid that line no mind! it’s just sitting down. i didn’t have the context to be like :O secunits don’t do that. secunits aren’t supposed to sit while on duty!
and now i’m thinking about the crew, who also have no idea what this means. and about mensah, who just minutes ago told it that she sees it as a person who’s trying to help (this is the first time its insides “go melty!”) and i simply do not think it is a coincidence that murderbot sits down next to its humans for the first time probably ever right after being told by a human for the first time probably ever that they see it as a person.
and it’s so satisfying on a narrative and rereading level, right, because the first time you read the book you’re with the crew—you have no idea what this means. but then you read it again, knowing more about secunits, and then the full emotional weight of that one line hits. because now you have context!
anyway this line was such a lovely example of why the murderbot diaries in particular is such a good reread. the context makes everything hit afresh the second time around, just as hard if not harder than the first!
Hailstones Murderthoughts: All Systems Red review
(For those who didn't see the post, I'm re-listening to the Murderbot books in anticipation of Platform Decay coming out NEXT WEEK!!)
Every time I come back to these books, different things stand out to me and I come away with more thoughts, more reflections, and more ideas about these characters. I so appreciate writing that rewards people for coming back time and time again.
Here are my All Systems Red thoughts after this week's listen-through, jotted down as I weeded my garden.
Okay, let's just start out by saying Martha is the master of the cold open. Every single murder bot book starts with a straight banger and ASR is absolutely no exception to this. “I could have become a mass murderer when I hacked my governor module”?
Absolutely brilliant.
This whole opening section is just a master class in very very efficient
world building.
Small thing, but I do think it's kind of funny. A little americanism. I’ve never heard anyone who actually uses the metric system refer to kilometers as kilos. Kilos usually refers to kilograms. I don't know why kilograms alone have earned that diminutive, but that's just how it is.
“They don't give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering…”
Immediately establishing that despite what we have just seen (Murderbot very effectively saving Bharadwaj) its usual use is for violence. And it doesn't know much about the world outside beyond its very explicitly stated purpose, and has probably been kept deliberately ignorant.
I know I've said it before but one of my absolute favourite moments of the TV show is having Ratthi going “well hellooo, who's this??”
It's such a good read on the scene, and since we're in Murderbot’s POV we have no evidence that this wasn't exactly what happened and it just Did Not Get It.
One of my early critiques of this book that I still stand by is the fact that none of the characters feel particularly distinct, aside from Murderbot and Mensah. Of course, having now read the rest of the series and gotten to know these characters well, I can obviously see their continuity. But in this book, they all just fade into a fairly homogenous background of “competent people helping make plot move.” But, fair enough, this is Murderbot’s story. Its relationship with Mensah is the most important development of this book, and the relationship with the rest of them comes later.
It's kind of downplayed in a few small moments throughout the book, but Murderbot does say that it has been enjoying this contract. Which gives more support to the idea that Murderbot really does like its job when said job is going well and it has autonomy. Jumping ahead to artificial condition, it's kind of an answer to Art’s question about whether it dislikes its function. Murderbot does like its function; its actual function. It doesn't like being used for violence, but it will use violence as a tool whenever necessary to protect its clients. That’s what it actually likes.
“... complaining about high prices for shitty equipment- I don't take it personally”
This is a very tongue in cheek way of reminding the audience that Murderbot is not a person, or at least is not considered to be so, by itself or by anyone else.
The quiet and careful threat of the autopilot cutting out… oughhhhh. Gets me every single time. (And yes the show having Mensah walk away from the controls DID annoy me)
“I don't do automated package updates anymore, now that I can help it.”
Man, doesn't that line carry so much weight with the ganaka pit backstory?? Even with murderbot not being 100% aware of what the hell happened with Ganaka, it just doesn't want to do that. God that hits hard.
And also the fact that if it hadn't hacked its governor module, it would have killed PresAux exactly the same way it killed its clients at Ganaka. Given what we know about Murderbot and how much it wants to protect people, this is such a gut punch for re-readers (Martha!! You are so cool and awesome!!)
(And also extending this logic - I wonder how the DeltFall units must have felt…)
Speaking of deltfall…
Murderbot's intense rage at the Secunits killing their clients. Deliberately acknowledging the smart thing, which would be just getting everyone the fuck out of there, and then deciding to kill the “rogue” secunits anyways. I wonder how much of this is latent rage at itself.
I will never stop wondering about the tech who accidentally downloaded the full specs that allowed MB figure out how to hack the govmod. Was it really an accident? Did that happen to any other units? Much to ponder. Much fodder for fic writers.
Genuinely, I am still kind of baffled by preservation’s rule about planetary leaders having to participate in their normal jobs. Like there's a reason that nowadays we don't let politicians hold on to their accounts and investments etc. while they're in office. And as we know, Mensah doing this survey made things a lot more complicated for EVERYONE, and made things way more expensive for preservation. Anyways, just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I understand that it had to happen for plot reasons.
Also, I love how petty Murderbot is about Gurathin. Every time an opportunity comes up MB is just like “antisocial. Loser. Annoying. No bitches” and I love that for them.
The armor as a symbolic element at the end of the book is something I keep turning over and over in my head.
“Can I still have my armor”
“I’d have to leave the armor behind. But maybe I wouldn't need it anymore.”
The tension of going to preservation to be ostensibly free, but also completely unable to fulfill its function because its function wouldn't be NEEDED on preservation. I think that is a bigger part of the reason for leaving than a lot of people give it credit for.
End of book thoughts:
Every single time I come back to any of these books, I have a different takeaway. This time, I was just thinking about how much Ganaka Pit haunts the narrative in ways that maybe Martha didn't even realize at the time.
Murderbot's aversion to automatic downloads.
Murderbot's terror at the combat override module.
Murderbot's cold and calculated fury when it thinks the deltfall units went rogue and slaughtered their clients.
There's just so many quiet moments where you see how utterly devoted Murderbot is to it's job, and how much it likes keeping people safe, and how core a violation it is to have to act against that instinct, and how utterly destructive it is that MB keeps being forced into violence that it DOES NOT WANT TO DO.
Part 2: Artificial Condition
That one scene from ASR
In a world where you get a secret filled count down to you identifying your soulmate Mensah isn't shocked by the words on her wrist. She is shocked by the owner.
//day 20, 20 Truths
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I said, "Dr. Mensah, do you need me for anything else?"
She turned her chair to face me. "No, I'll call if we have any questions." 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. Then she added, "You know, you can stay here in the crew area if you want. Would you like that?"
They all looked at me, most of them smiling. One disadvantage in wearing the armor is that I get used to opaquing the faceplate. I'm out of practice at controlling my expression. Right now I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the region of stunned horror, or maybe appalled horror.
Mensah sat up, startled. She said hurriedly, "Or not, you know, whatever you like."
I said, "I need to check the perimeter," and managed to turn and leave the crew area in a totally normal way and not like I was fleeing from a bunch of giant hostiles.
The amount of people who don't seem to realize the Archie Sonic Restored 293 pages are completely brand new and not actually "restored" pages (the story is "restored" not the art itself) is incredibly funny to me. On one hand cos it's causing a lot of panic of how "Archie Sonic predicted Digital Circus Jax" and on the other hand cos, hey no bro--that's all me. I did that in February of this year. That's all me bro. Thanks for the confidence boost in my art, I guess lol
