be kind

i wanna discuss this very, very smooth move from farai and naja. cause i think this maneuver was entirely premeditated. they know murderbot's priority is their safety. they know it would sooner separate from the group than put them in more danger; it already tried having them go on without it when they first encountered security looking for rogue secunits. and all three of them said no fucking way, we're going with you, it's safer for you. (humans accepting it repeatedly shields it from scrutiny and suspicion. the heart is a stealth field generator. no one expects a rogue secunit to have a child clinging to it so the militia thinks nothing of letting them in unchallenged)

anyway, i think farai and naja long suspected mb would want to go and do this alone. and they planned not to let it go alone and to split up without letting it argue. they wouldve had to lie to murderbot, communicate without it being aware.

theres something so... family knows you best and knows how to sort of discreetly lovingly manipulate you into having an easier time about it or to know how youll react to something and know the best way to handle it.

the same goes for farai and mb lying to naja about 'catching up later' if they had to go on without them:

that 'it's a good idea to lie to naja' is actually what clued me in to farai being willing to lie to mb

so how did they do it?

well, an earlier scene pointed out mb's blindspot:

all they would have to do to keep mb out of the loop would be pass a paper note lmao (is there paper? who knows. but naja knows how to set up an untracable one way news feed without even being an augmented human so i think they have a few tricks)

i love how they protect it. it reminds me of network effect, where as soon as thiago realizes he misjudged mb, he takes the next opportunity to support it by *not letting it go alone* to the hell plague planet station. this family i swear c:

and when they do let it go off alone? when farai takes tula off its chest... they know it's going off to help other people: the militia, the civilians. they know it wants to protect as many people as possible, not to let them be collateral damage to a danger they brought. and despite farai (and janity) being distressed they support its decision

just as theyre trying to support mensah's decision to help

i think farai gets it now. she's made the decision herself now, to help strangers at the risk of her own family. and she's seen what mb does and how it helps too

i wanna discuss this very, very smooth move from farai and naja. cause i think this maneuver was entirely premeditated. they know murderbot's priority is their safety. they know it would sooner separate from the group than put them in more danger; it already tried having them go on without it when they first encountered security looking for rogue secunits. and all three of them said no fucking way, we're going with you, it's safer for you. (humans accepting it repeatedly shields it from scrutiny and suspicion. the heart is a stealth field generator. no one expects a rogue secunit to have a child clinging to it so the militia thinks nothing of letting them in unchallenged)

anyway, i think farai and naja long suspected mb would want to go and do this alone. and they planned not to let it go alone and to split up without letting it argue. they wouldve had to lie to murderbot, communicate without it being aware.

theres something so... family knows you best and knows how to sort of discreetly lovingly manipulate you into having an easier time about it or to know how youll react to something and know the best way to handle it.

the same goes for farai and mb lying to naja about 'catching up later' if they had to go on without them:

that 'it's a good idea to lie to naja' is actually what clued me in to farai being willing to lie to mb

so how did they do it?

well, an earlier scene pointed out mb's blindspot:

all they would have to do to keep mb out of the loop would be pass a paper note lmao (is there paper? who knows. but naja knows how to set up an untracable one way news feed without even being an augmented human so i think they have a few tricks)

i love how they protect it. it reminds me of network effect, where as soon as thiago realizes he misjudged mb, he takes the next opportunity to support it by *not letting it go alone* to the hell plague planet station. this family i swear c:

and when they do let it go off alone? when farai takes tula off its chest... they know it's going off to help other people: the militia, the civilians. they know it wants to protect as many people as possible, not to let them be collateral damage to a danger they brought. and despite farai (and janity) being distressed they support its decision

just as theyre trying to support mensah's decision to help

i think farai gets it now. she's made the decision herself now, to help strangers at the risk of her own family. and she's seen what mb does and how it helps too

"and I thought the desert rock planet and jungle themed stations were fucking annoying but then the next one was construction site themed and they weren't even actually doing construction! I mean they did have a giant hole in the middle of the floor but that was only for a stupid hologram of a-"

Three: "Numerals"

Murderbot (very cool and mature): "NuMeRaLs"

ART gave it a makeover and a perm.

Nothing to see here: Just Murderbot being cool and normal in the Rainforest Café section of the space station.

Murderbot, you cringe-ass Millenial. (Same)

Not beating the Third Mom allegations.

You know, like, when you just know your homie the way your lungs know air, the way your skin knows warmth, the way your blood knows your heart. Just bro stuff, humans wouldn't get it.

Murderbot: "Rip Bozo. Couldn't be me though."

(No but seriously. I'm dying at Three's unwritten B-plot in this book. The way its shenanigans haunt the narrative.

At some point it was SUPPOSED to come back to the shuttle, but instead it casually started a Secunit uprising and then just sat in the dock a few hundred feet away from the shuttle waiting for Murderbot the way my cat bolts out the front door when I open it only to sit at the end on the driveway like, "I hadn't thought past this part, and now I'm scared." Waiting for me to come pick it up and bring it back in.

all its efforts to grow accustomed to reading human emotion foiled by a respectable collection of a lifetime of wrinkles. naja's expression markers that it's frantically feeding into its emotional analysis function to figure out what it did wrong this time are all just long-engraved

"glaring" frown lines

"suspicious" crow's feet,

"disapproving" grooves framing her mouth

jowls adding more emphasis to her "frown"

Thiago: ok yes these people are actively threatening our lives and trying to rob us and shot SecUnit but that’s no excuse for SecUnit to use violence.

(three books later)

Three: I didn't follow the plan. because. there was... interesting architecture.

And Platform Decay gives us some interesting clues. The one that gets me is it's whole little aside about recognizing ART like recognizing a familiar heartbeat. Firstly, fucking adorable. Secondly, the way it talks about it implies that it's telling this narrative to humans. It's trying to explain this experience to humans but isn't sure if humans can recognize a familiar heartbeats so it's not sure if it's explanation makes sense to it's audience.

I had kind of thought the narrative might be for other potential rogue secunits because we knew that was going to happen (ilu3) but apparently that's not who this narrative is for.

I also thought "I did know, I just didn't want a record of it." Is fascinating because like...it's not like we can't guess what it wanted to do there. Who does it think is going to see this record that wouldn't be totally sympathetic?