#episodes 5

William the Blorbos

Youtube served up a video to me about an old blorbos of mine. 

I speak, of course, of William the Marshall, the Good Knight.

And whose relationship -- err…patronage by -- Eleanor of Aquitaine put his life on the course that it did. 

I mean, in a general sense, WillyM had little in common with MB. What with being a 1200s Norman knight.  While on a routine escort mission, the group was attacked, he risked his life to enable a slightly older (30s to his 20s) woman to escape the ambush, and was himself injured and captured. But psych, that lady was the Queen of England. EllieA being no fool, ransomed his ass and offered him a job in her families' service as a true and parfait knight, which is how the next fifty years of badassery went. 

Don't get me wrong, William totally knew who Eleanor was. He didn't delete his memory or fail to read the packet because he was too busy listening to troubadours, but he was also a random knight and didn't have a lot of reason to think he was going to get ransomed and offered a job. 

Which, well, parallels end because Preservation Alliance isn't medieval Europe, and there was more for William to do. 

But where I'm going with this is that the video got me to thinking that a lot of folks who want to see Mensah and MB's relationship as maternal/child, don't have other models to work with. She's not his mom. She's not his boss. Not really. 

There is a social/human class differential between Mensah and MB. It's that differential that possibly reads to some folks as maternal, but MB is an adult who has been around the tourney circuit a few times. But as a gracious leader worthy of service, that works. 

vs The Prince

I'd already been thinking that in a lot of ways the Corporate Rim is set up as a Machiavellian hellscape where using people isn't just acceptable, it's expected to maintain power. Where deception is a key tool.

Gurathin was a spy. LeBeeBee is a spy/murderer, if by combat-proxy.

Not that LeBeeBee even bothers to have a consistent story. In Ep 6, she slightly changes aspects of her story from Ep 5: who she was indentured to, the length of that indenture, but all in the service of cozying up. She accurately spots Bharadwaj as someone who is open and vulnerable. For LeBeeBee, emotional connection doesn't exist. It's all in the service of millions of credits. Because that's how it is on the Corporate Rim. 

Even her on-going discussions sexualizing MB, who at that point she thinks she's just vaporized, is all in the service of pushing PresAux one way or another.

The Corporate Rim, like our world, is one in which cynicism is often celebrated. Nihilism is the praised response to the socio-political horror of the day. Engagement, well, that's what media is for.

Preservation Alliance is framed as full of naive rubes, because they don't ascribe to that paradigm. 

To be naive is to lack experience, wisdom, or judgement. 

In fiction, as in life, valuing concepts other than cynicism is often presented as naive. But I feel that the show, as an extension on the books, is presenting reaching out to others as a choice.

Bharadwaj isn't necessarily wrong to reach out to LeBeeBee. I mean, it could have gotten her killed. But LeBeeBee's chosing be self-serving gets her killed in this narrative. Because there is always a bigger badder baddie out there. Sometimes a SecUnit. Sometimes a giant worm-creature. 

Trusting LeBeeBee isn't safe, but it was a choice out of a perspective. 

Trusting Gurathin probably wasn't a great idea either, except it was. 

The books definitely give the impression, and the show is expanding on the idea that Preservation Alliance isn't a, "There's only so much room at the table" society, it's a, "Let's make a bigger table." 

It's not naivety for Mensah, having just seen MB grab Gurathin by the throat-hold-release-walk away to ask it to help protect their group. With full understanding that it has the choice not to, but that the compassionately pragmatic choice is to ask for its help. There's a simply lovely visual interplay between Mensah and Gurathin during this whole sequence of events that I missed the first time through. She's talking to MB, making her pitch, glances at Gurathin and the camera follows her gaze to where Gurathin is visibly uncomfortable, and she keeps going. It's not naive to ask for MB's help, despite MB being quite literally a weapon in Corporate Rim terms. 

It's about making choices about how you want to be, and the narrative is putting a lot of energy in first positioning PresAux as these weird hippies, and then refusing to privilege the Corporate Rim point of view as well. 

Chimes

That said, Arada. Sweetie, don't insult the lady with the gun. Don't run at the SecUnit trying to shoot you. 

Lovely. Fierce. Like to see it, but yeah, maybe no.

Also, she is the person who told LeBeeBee that she had a beautiful name. Given the glances that Pin-Lee and Ratti were giving her, I'm wondering if she was giving off, "I'm about to try to ask to add to the contract vibes," that they recognized. Until LeBeeBee was LeBeeBee, and Arada went, "Nope." 

I'm fascinated by the shift from book MB has not, never wants to kill someone in front of Arada, to this is a MB who very much has in fact very much killed someone in front of her. 

In a way, this places front and center who/what MB is for PresAux. 

For Arada, who looks at giant worms going at it and is filled with special interest delight. 

Flutes of Power

I don't have much to say here, but I was also listening to an old episode of TimeTeam, and they made an Anglo Saxon flute, and that thing sounded so much like the instrument Ratthin was playing. 

Kind of annoying sounding, but part of the musical landscape of a different culture. 

Two Sides of the Same Coin

I've seen much digital ink spilled on how Gurathin and MB are very similar, which no argument. 

Gurathin seeing MB as a sort of romantic rival for the favor of the great lady is very Book of Courtly Love of him, but reads to me as Gurathin misreading his own feelings because there aren't a lot of other scripts out there. 

Love is romantic love, except when it isn't. Sometimes it's misreading the gesture of a good friend to attend a lecture because you need a friendly face, or even really misunderstanding one's own emotions out of the powerful emotion of leaving a very bad place.

I suppose it says something about my friend set that the idea that PresAux's entangled romantic backstory makes a lot of sense to me.

But I want to speak of the other side of the coin. Not Janus over there, being Gurathin and MB, but Ratthi. 

Awkward. Seeming like he's gotten by on charm his whole life, but that only goes so far. Certainly better social skills, but not actually being all that good at it.

Reading the room as he comes in on Arada and Pin-Lee, but goes in anyway. If he were actually good at reading a room, he'd have left. Instead, he offers a massage, and ends up getting one. Not because he's trying to manipulate the situation, a la LeBeeBee. He is a golden retriever in human form, but he's also a very particular type of person who needs to connect and isn't quite landing that connection.

So he's always reaching, reaching, reaching. 

He steps back in the softer approach scene, but he also goes over to MB in the shuttle…and is tremendously bad at it. 

He plays murder-die-whatever video game player, but he's a fake/grinder.

Ratthi's been added -- perhaps temporarily -- to Arada & Pin-Lee's contract, but he's not a husband. He isn't connected. 

His whole, let's have a kid blurt, made me think about the water-like pressure in society to ask about co-workers kids. Oddly enough, MB reflects this by parroting its media and asking Arada if she has kids. I mean, MB don't care so it hasn't noticed that she doesn't have seven million kids. 

Pin-Lee and Arada haven't talked about it.

But Ratthi clearly has thought about it. 

That had all the hallmarks of someone who has thought about how he isn't plugged in. How, he's an adult, but not a person who is participating in the project of raising the next generation, which is a thing (even socialist societies it would seem) think one must do. Blady-blady-blah. And it leaks out in the worst way. 

Whereas Mensah…oh, Mensah, how much I want to put your favor on my sleeve and fight in the tourney for your honor.

Or something.

Serious as a Heart Attack

I'm of two minds if Mensah realizes she's having panic attacks or not. It's entirely possible that this is a new stress in the body phenomenon she only started experiencing after Bharadwaj and Arada are almost eaten by a giant worm, on the alien planet she and her team need to explore to help support her world getting necessary resources, and yeah that is just a new level of stress. She's far from her world, her partners, and any sense of normalcy.  

It's also entirely possible that she had panic attacks before coming to the world of worms and no (so far) resources.

Stress is an odd thing. It creates brain fog so it's hard to process input. It raises your blood pressure. Makes your heart beat fast. Gives tension headaches (from that high blood pressure). Makes a person feel like there is a ten pound weight on your chest and you cannot breathe. 

For a brief digress, I worked in a very stressful place for 9 years (8 years ago). At least once a week, I googled for signs of stroke &/or heart attack in women. I was having daily panic attacks, but it was also possible I was having a serious health condition. This is where brain fog comes in.

So seeing Mensah go through this and not know what's happening to her body was profoundly relatable to me. And it would seem tv MB, who has no heart and can't have a heart attack, but can have a panic attack. Who can / has been forced to go into the horrors for all of its life. 

There's something profoundly intimate about sharing the only tool in its toolbox for dealing with anxiety. Breathing the crystal air. 

Really kudos to Noma Dumezweni for conveying panic, anger, attempting to breathe in unison, realization regarding MB, which does serve to calm her all within a few moments. 

Breathing the Crystal Air

When I am stressed, I focus on breathing into my belly or box breathing. This helps shift my body from the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) to parasympathetic nervous system (rest & digest). My heart rate goes down as does my blood pressure. 

MB doesn't have a stomach to digest food. It doesn't have a rest and digest mode, or I assume a parasympathetic nervous system. MB doesn't have a heart. 

When I am stressed myself, or helping a friend having a panic attack/anxiety, I focus on my body. In particular the sense of smell, which can elicit emotional reactions.

Given the way MB talks about pheromones, I'm not sure it has a sense of smell. Certainly no pleasant memories to associate with a certain smell.

What MB has, all it has, is its shows, which it has memorized, connects to, and yeah, I would delete a manual too if that's all I had to keep myself from having a panic attack.

MB has exactly one tool and seeing Mensah realize that in real time was beautiful.  

Bitter and Sweet

Bitter and Sweet could just be a party game, but I keep thinking about social relationships in stressful situations. How important it is to connect and hash out difficult things. I do wonder if the show isn't positing Bitter & Sweet not so much as a game, but as a way for people in Preservation Alliance to confront and deal with possible rough edges in relationships. 

First say the sweet. The thing you love. Then get out of the way the bitterness between you that could be a problem while on a survey mission. Then join hands and articulate that "We can talk about this." It's not something that has to be buried or pushed down. We can talk about this. Safely. Without recrimination. It's safe. We can talk about this.

Preservation Alliance is not a culture that values silence. Being quiet. 

Sitting there at that table in a fancy restaurant in the belly of the beast. The Corporate Rim. With everyone around them going, why so loud, ye rubes. 

Whatever.

Present Tense

I find it interesting that Gurathin's emotional connection to that low point in his life is present tense. He's not, "I was a spy. I was considering suicide." It's all present tense. It's living. It's alive. It's right there.

Which makes sense.

He's gone back to the Corporate Rim. Because he's naive, too.

L v B: Paying for children

Debt for children.

Licenses for children. There's a lot of context for that concept in Science Fiction. Folks can only get the licence after they take the class / get certified. Licenses are limited because resources are limited / there is overcrowding.

In a lot of ways, as a science fiction reader I'm set up to expect that Preservation Alliance would be the world that would require a license to have a child. There aren't limitless resources. They do believe in therapy modules and treating people right, and that would include children, and would fit a norm of requiring license in the same way I need a driver's license to drive.

But no. 

Because this is a Corporate hellscape. Licenses because Corporate overlords want folks to pay to create the next generation of workers.

Versus Bharadwaj's the entire society of Preservation Alliance bears the cost of raising a child. Not just having it, but the raising to adulthood.

I always like it when science fiction addresses that this process isn't free. That raising children is a group project. 

Island Chain

We continue to tease out why PrexAux is on planet, and it's such an interesting delicate shift from the books.

In most cases I would expect a book to go more into depth about the mechanisms of a socialist society, but MB aggressively doesn't care. 

In the tv show, it makes sense that we'd get more information about Preservation Alliance because MB is no longer narrating our story. TV is third person omniscient. 

We get little name drops about the Captain who rescued the colonists from the failed colony planet where PresAux ancestors were left to sink/swim/die. We get discussions about how needs are met, but there's also debt to bring in resources.

I continue to like this deepening of why PresAux is out there, because it gives gravitas to why they are bending their principles to use/bring to the world a SecUnit. 

Once one is in the Preservation Alliance, they have reached a base level utopia of the sort that occurs in a world without teleporters and replicators and fabricators. But I think about islanders (I have a different island in mind than you may think) and how they may need resources.

Consider how amazed Bharadwaj was by the medical bay. I mean she was high, but also I don't think they have those resources in Preservation Alliance. 

The Corporate Rim gives nothing for free. 

Whereas in the books, a lot is open to interpretation about Preservation Alliance, because MB doesn't care. We get a festival. Various polycules. There's a side to 1 of the planets in the 3 planet alliance that isn't terraformed.

We're told they barter within systems and credit/money on the station. 

Barter. They barter. 

Mr Shorty Would Like Word 

So in addition to being interested in certain medieval figures, I'm really into bronze age societies, and learning about ancient people's. 

That means when I hear barter, I don't go…ah ha utopia they are beyond money, or even get into what I think credits in Star Trek actually represent given physical things can be replicated, it means I think about how barter systems historically worked. 

Which can be, "thank you doctor for treating my child, have a chicken," but it's also trade goods. 

Or put another way that Tumblrinas may grok, Ea Nasir of the terrible copper lived in a barter system society and was a copper trader.

Copper was a barter good. Processed copper that has had the arsenic etc. taken out is good copper, and unprocessed copper is bad, because then you've got to deal with getting the arsenic out. When you've traded goods for good processed copper and you get the shit with the arsenic still in you get annoyed and write letters. Or send your boy "Mr. Shorty" to "speak" sternly to the copper merchant. Yes, the person receiving copper might have wanted to make some bronze (after they got their tin on), but just as likely they wanted a trade good.

Another common barter/trade good was fabric. So barter makes me think about pre-industrial household engines where women were spinning flax and wool into thread, to weave into different types of fabric on looms that were dedicated to making that kind of fabric. Where women were gathering the items to dye the thread and/or fabric. Where that fabric could then be used to trade for things that you wanted, because you can't make homemade clothes without fabric and fabric takes (in a pre-modern sense) *a lot* of labor. Like a lot alot. 

Preservation Alliance with their home made clothes and their barter system.

At this point, I'm kind of imaging the Preservation Alliance as the Minoans, who probably weren't as utopian as early archeologists want to think, but also appear to have had good diets cross societally given the bones they left behind. I mean, nice place, enough to eat, but there's limited natural resources for say making bronze, and you need bronze or you're not in the Bronze Age, you're just scraping by with flint. 

Preservation Alliance has enough food, but what about therapeutics made in advanced facilities or possible certain kinds of metals or computer chips or whatever? That requires trade.

I think about how the Minoans were able to get value for their trade goods by making really fancy worked leather goods and luxury items, and how that can't work for Preservation Alliance, given how the Corporate Rim prefabricates clothing / goods.  

But I also think about the Minoan bull leapers who went to Egypt. I think about people in present day who immigrate from their homes to work and send money home to their families in less economically advantaged countries. 

Labor is also a thing that is bartered. So, I'm really intrigued by the revelation that the mission to this planet is because Preservation Alliance has debt to the Corporate Rim / Corporations. That the reason they don't immediately pull the ripcord when things get strange is because they need to be there. 

They are Bull Leapers in xenophobic Egypt bringing the copper and tin home. 

For Science

Bharadwaj is right though. It's also for science.

It's Arada getting her passion about biological lifeforms out there when the compatible creatures are going at it.

Sex and death.

Sex. It causes eggs. Which leads to life, which leads to death. To a certain way of thinking.

The Crowd didn't Rejoice

There were a number of ways the show could have handled LeBeeBee's death. They went with realistic shock and horror. They went with SecUnits don't just kill, they can overkill. Like a lot of overkilling. 

MB wears its helmet, has its shield from gaze, and takes no chances. LeBeeBee isn't given even the chance of a last mental impulse to pull a trigger. It's meant to be shocking and by the PresAux reactions, we the audience are given direction on how we're meant to take these events.

This isn't Mortal Combat - kill-die-video game, flawless victory, out with the spinal column. This is meant to be shocking. 

This is Ratthi going, "I'm friends with a SecUnit," and blithely not grokking that MB isn't human. Doesn't want to be human. 

I'm actually inclined to wonder at this point if the reason why MB doesn't have any obvious mods like in the books, even as far as say a Seven of Nine thing on the forehead, is to create that sense of humanity that is skin deep. Where the audience and PresAux go, coded human, but no. 

Mensah slicing that long cut to open up skin and reveal metal mesh. A metal spinal column. Human-ish connective tissue that is probably organic and is probably also synthetic. Because MB is a whole confused being. 

That MB talks about liking killing LeBeeBee (a statement I don't necessarily take at face value) directly after saying that PresAux thought they were getting to know it. 

Or maybe I do.

It fulfilled its function. It had a win. LeBeeBee died. But no Huzzah.

Huzzahs when the worm kills the SecUnit with its face behind the mask. "Stay calm," while shooting. 

That PresAux has been defining MB as human. Look, human face, etc. 

But it's not.

Yes, it doesn't want to be treated as an object, but it's been very clear that it does not want to be seen as a human either. 

I do think that part of the reason that plot arc of leaking fluid/neural tissue in ships is partly there is to further emphasize that MB is cousin to the hovercraft more than it is cousin to us. 

It gets up from back surgery to go repair the craft. It's not human. If isn't there and then it is to shoot LeBeeBee. It's not human. 

Interwoven in this is the Sanctuary Moon romance of the captain and the NavBot. With the captain ordering NavBot to sit down, and being so sure that of course the goal is to be more human.

Gurathin and Medbay

I do wonder that Gurathin didn't take the time while MB was getting patched up to patch up as well. 

Delighted Mensah wasn't dead.

Distracted by tasks.

There wasn't time.

But priority wasn't given. A choice of sorts.

Phallic and Yonic

Okay, on one hand we've got LeBeeBee saying that MB is owned. A thing. If they want to modify it, they can. Transform the walking weapon with guns in its arms. Give it a phallus.

Meanwhile, MB is asking Mensah (Temmy is in the well) to cut open its back in massive yonic imagery that I kind of wanted to hang a Georgia O'Keefe painting and call it a day. 

Except MB prioritizes repairing its back. Becoming whole again. 

Which, okay, I'm really bouncing around here, but I'm going to link to a poem by Rilke about Euridice. 

Here Rilke imagines that in death, Euridice casts aside gender roles and, 

"...She found herself in a resurrected virginity; her sex closed like a young flower at nightfall. And her hands were so weaned from marriage that she suffered from the light god's endlessly still guiding touch as from too great an intimacy…

She was already loosened like long hair and surrendered like the rain and issued like massive provisions. She was already root."

I thought about this imagery MB had its back repaired. Closed. Pulling back from touch. Root as it imagines itself becoming a lump in the natural landscape in it's dream of dying through lack of motion.

But apart. Not truly part of the green.

Not enough media to just walk away and die.

MB is Euridice becoming root, and hacking its own root files.