thetreebuddy

Network Effect. --

I think about SecUnit 003 fairly often... mostly how it will always be a part of a set.

Some clean versions below -- warning, there is gore.

[Image Description. Two fanart drawings for The Murderbot Diaries, Network Effect. The two are split into three panels, each showing a SecUnit from the book. The first set is Barish-Estranza Units 001, 002, and 003. Each are in identical armor with the B-E logo on their chest piece. However, over 001 and 002 there is an orange overlay and the message ' WARNING - Security Unit Sustained Critical Damage - Fines Will Be Issued - Return Unit to Recycler After Supervisor Approval.' Their bloody remains can be seen under the effect. 001's head has a missing chunk, and 002's face plate leaks blood and fluids. 003 has blood splattered on it from 001. The second drawing features Three, Murderbot 2.0 and Murderbot 1.0. Three is a mid toned east asian person with cropped hair wearing an orange and black Barish-Estranza uniform. There is dirt and blood splattered across its face and bruises under its eyes. Despite this it stands in SecUnit neutral. Murderbot 2.0 is a blackhole in the outline of a person. The message 'WARNING Security Unit Sustained Critical Damage' is glitched across its panel. Murderbot 1.0 is an darker toned south asian person wearing Perihelion's blue enviro-suit. Red and blue blood, dirt and crystal cover it, except its eyes where it wiped its face clear. Its brows are furrowed as it stares ahead. many glitched messages are behind it, warning it over its failing state. Some of the glitches seem to originate from 2.0. END ID]

Bonus beneath read more -cw - gore.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

“I’ve fucked everything up,” I’d told ART. This was when I was in Medical after my “incident.” Mensah and I had called Amena so she wouldn’t worry (or at least so she would know that I was still alive, even I know that’s important for human children). I told Mensah I wanted to watch media and she had left, and I’d blocked the humans’ comm and feed access to the room.

ART had said, That’s nothing new.

I ignored that because it was just trying to reassure me. If it started being sympathetic it would be terrifying. “Your crew isn’t going to want me to do their security anymore.”

Why is that?

That question was obviously a trap and I should ignore it. It wasn’t as if I could put the answer into words. I was different. It wasn’t just the alien contamination.

What came out was, “Something in me broke.”

System Collapse, Martha Wells

Except ☝️when a combat SecUnit or combat bot shows up

#yeah to me her death really does feel more like a sign and indictment of the futility and self-destructive nature of the corporate system#like. leonide played the game and played it well she was on top she was one of the people who the system served#and then she wasn't. and all of a sudden her and her whole family died because THE SYSTEM COMES FOR EVERYONE!#The corporation rim is a monster built by people who thought they would be safe if they could just stay in control#but it turns out nobody can control it. and as soon as someone gets just a little bit unlucky they get eaten#i'm really hoping that the series ends with the CR dissolving as it violently consumes itself in a mess of conflict and destruction#wheres that post that's like "the most poetic ending for murderbot would be it outliving the system that built it'' WHERE IS IT ????#anyways. martha wells said FUCK capitalism for the eighth (?) book in a row and i continue to love her for it

really fond of the idea that the adjustments murderbot made to its appearance for this mission made it look more a member of mensah's family

ID below the cut (copied from alt)

That one platform decay scene. To me 👍

Stills of MB's signs ⬇️

Meanwhile Murderbot's actual interactions with children throughout the books:

(Not pictured is Sofi spamming her best friend Secunit with heart emojis or it carrying Tula around because she feels safe with it or Amena calling it Mom)

Some better pictures of the leafkerchief. It’s made of a plain green cotton, with facings in a much lighter weight cotton, and after I sewed and turned all the points right side out I topstitched as close to the edge as I could. The inner edge of the facing is hand sewn with a slipstitch, and the veins are painted on.

Your wife is a wonderful, caring planetary leader and scientist <3

She goes on what's meant to be a mundane planetary survey expedition

this turns into a corporate death trap she and her team just barely escape with their lives

after the death trap she gets kidnapped by the corporation that made the death trap due to them not wanting to pay damages

again. she and her team miraculously escape with their lives

after what easily had to be 6+ months she finally arrives home

Your wife is traumatized, unwilling to talk about or address this trauma, and now has a co-dependent relationship with a rogue SecUnit

You and the family are really trying not to hold the 'rogue SecUnit' thing against the Rogue SecUnit. Not its fault. But it is sarcastic and glares a lot and is non-social and has installed literal spydrones everywhere. It's willing to kill anyone who hurts your wife or her extended family. This is, to put it bluntly, a bit of an Adjustment for everyone.

Your wife decides to retire from being a planetary leader. One one hand, you think it's a good idea for her to take the time to focus on her mental health and be with her loved ones. On the other hand, it's concerning all of this has made her give up one of her passions.

One of your older children is going on her first off-planetary survey. This is good, obviously :) It's just. you are all still stressing from the trauma of your last family member's planetary survey.

It's fine. It's going to be fine. Your brother-in-law is going to be with her, and a bunch of your wife's long-standing colleagues, and-- you have complex feelings about this-- the SecUnit. it will be fine.

It is not fine.

The SecUnit and your brother-in-law and your daughter have all been kidnapped by a mysterious force for mysterious reasons.

Now your wife-- who is meant to be on indefinite mental health leave-- is off to save them.

You and your third partner want to go with her. You want to. But you have no skills for this, and family at home you need to care for. So you stay on the sidelines, waiting, waiting, waiting.

THEY'RE OKAY EVERYONE IS OKAY

thank fuck. phew. okay. now they're going to come home and--

what do you meant they're not coming home

what do you mean your child has decided to go to university off world at the school that kidnapped her

what do you mean your wife, instead of retiring, has decided to become some sort of anti-corporate activist

Yeah okay. This is not a conversation to have over the feed with a 2+ month time delay. You need to have an in-person conversation. You'll make a family trip of it; Nana and Sofia will come with. This is a good, normal, family visit

new rule, asking secunit is cheating