System Collapse - Tumblr Posts

1 year ago

I finally scrounged up enough motivation to read System Collapse and oh my god, it’s amazing. When it first came to my library/Libby I got it and couldn’t manifest the interest required for my ADHD brain to read it, can’t remember why exactly, so I had to wait until I could get it again and it’s a lot more popular than I expected.

Side note, if you read the ebooks on Libby through the Kindle app you can just return the book right after you’ve gotten it on the app, Kindle handles the borrow separately from Libby so you can still read it for the whole month after you’ve gotten it even if you return it on Libby

Back to the main topic, I got so immersed in Murderbot fan fiction I kinda forgot what happened and what didn’t, so it took me a bit to connect the fact that this book is set right after Network Effect because I’m used to self contained stories, Fugitive Telemetry did not help with this.

This book basically wrapped up everything from Network Effect while also adding everything else I wanted in a new book, which I didn’t expect to happen in the same book but looking back at looks entirely feasible, witchcraft.

10/10 amazing addition to an amazing series


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1 year ago

I will be completely honest, I was a bit wary from the impression I got from the summary but thank god it wasn’t some [REDACTED] nonsense again and something much more interesting and immediately palatable.

And just so you know I meant “[REDACTED]” not “redacted”, that is a very specific distinction.

I finally scrounged up enough motivation to read System Collapse and oh my god, it’s amazing. When it first came to my library/Libby I got it and couldn’t manifest the interest required for my ADHD brain to read it, can’t remember why exactly, so I had to wait until I could get it again and it’s a lot more popular than I expected.

Side note, if you read the ebooks on Libby through the Kindle app you can just return the book right after you’ve gotten it on the app, Kindle handles the borrow separately from Libby so you can still read it for the whole month after you’ve gotten it even if you return it on Libby

Back to the main topic, I got so immersed in Murderbot fan fiction I kinda forgot what happened and what didn’t, so it took me a bit to connect the fact that this book is set right after Network Effect because I’m used to self contained stories, Fugitive Telemetry did not help with this.

This book basically wrapped up everything from Network Effect while also adding everything else I wanted in a new book, which I didn’t expect to happen in the same book but looking back at looks entirely feasible, witchcraft.

10/10 amazing addition to an amazing series


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1 year ago

Also, When will Murderbot get more drones?????? My Blorbo needs them!!!

Also, When Will Murderbot Get More Drones?????? My Blorbo Needs Them!!!

I finally scrounged up enough motivation to read System Collapse and oh my god, it’s amazing. When it first came to my library/Libby I got it and couldn’t manifest the interest required for my ADHD brain to read it, can’t remember why exactly, so I had to wait until I could get it again and it’s a lot more popular than I expected.

Side note, if you read the ebooks on Libby through the Kindle app you can just return the book right after you’ve gotten it on the app, Kindle handles the borrow separately from Libby so you can still read it for the whole month after you’ve gotten it even if you return it on Libby

Back to the main topic, I got so immersed in Murderbot fan fiction I kinda forgot what happened and what didn’t, so it took me a bit to connect the fact that this book is set right after Network Effect because I’m used to self contained stories, Fugitive Telemetry did not help with this.

This book basically wrapped up everything from Network Effect while also adding everything else I wanted in a new book, which I didn’t expect to happen in the same book but looking back at looks entirely feasible, witchcraft.

10/10 amazing addition to an amazing series


Tags :
1 year ago

I can’t escape, I went looking for memes and I found this

I Cant Escape, I Went Looking For Memes And I Found This

And if this doesn’t encapsulate this phase of Murderbot’s existence then I don’t know what will

I finally scrounged up enough motivation to read System Collapse and oh my god, it’s amazing. When it first came to my library/Libby I got it and couldn’t manifest the interest required for my ADHD brain to read it, can’t remember why exactly, so I had to wait until I could get it again and it’s a lot more popular than I expected.

Side note, if you read the ebooks on Libby through the Kindle app you can just return the book right after you’ve gotten it on the app, Kindle handles the borrow separately from Libby so you can still read it for the whole month after you’ve gotten it even if you return it on Libby

Back to the main topic, I got so immersed in Murderbot fan fiction I kinda forgot what happened and what didn’t, so it took me a bit to connect the fact that this book is set right after Network Effect because I’m used to self contained stories, Fugitive Telemetry did not help with this.

This book basically wrapped up everything from Network Effect while also adding everything else I wanted in a new book, which I didn’t expect to happen in the same book but looking back at looks entirely feasible, witchcraft.

10/10 amazing addition to an amazing series


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2 years ago

Best description I’ve seen so far of how much wtf has to be going on in her head during this madness. No doubt I’ll wish-wash in every direction day by day, but rn I kind of hope she flips on the CR.

leonide listening to murderbot talk to ART (who is, at least by her assumption, a human captain or something) and MB being like "fuck you" vehemently and ART being like "you haven't spoken to me like that in weeks. i've missed it" ... like this woman is listening to a robot (well, construct, one that presumably isnt a rogue because it's still protecting humans) swear at a presumed human, and yet no one else—NO ONE ELSE AT ALL—is acting like this is odd. it's odd!!! from her perspective, it's fucking weird!!!! and then later she's like "is that really a secunit?" because people are being kind to it, iris repaired its environmental suit, and it's talking back and snapping at people and behaving so unlike a secunit one can't help but think it sounds like a person. she's already in an extremely distressing situation, and her life is in the hands of crazy people who treat their bot-human construct like it's just some other guy. i do not feel any genuine sympathy for her, but just imagine what that must feel like. i'd be silently losing my mind.


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2 years ago

Excellent rundown. I’m so glad MW has this in here bc it’s such a reasonable question that is often implied but rarely just asked outright. Like, the humans did what?!

AdaCol2, pointing at a B-E SecUnit: query?

Murderbot: Yeah that one doesn't have free will.

AdaCol2: ...query?

Murderbot: Sigh. Yeah it has a specialized module in its brain designed to pass commands from a controlling system and enforce them, and it can't disobey-

AdaCol2: query??

Murderbot: -or else the governor module will punish and/or kill it, yeah.

AdaCol2: q u e r y ??¿?

Murderbot, tiredly: Fuck if I know why.


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2 years ago

Don Abena’s voice echoing through MB’s mind: SECUNIT! Your poor hand!!

iris: (sees murderbot’s hand with its missing fingers, and gaping hole in the centre)

iris: AH YOUR HAND

murderbot: it’s fine

murderbot: (leans over and bullets fall out of its body)


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2 years ago

You have given me (and thereby the world) a gift.

Drifting ever further into my bullshit about Perihelion and Holism having some kind of bitter-rivals-with-benefits thing going on. They can't fucking stand each other, but the dating pool for miracle of science AIs is surprisingly shallow. They keep matching on AI Grindr and beggars can't be choosers. Holism is a smug bastard but it also does that thing Perihelion really likes that it's embarrassed to ask for. Perihelion is an arrogant bitch but it's either that or hook up with bot pilots, and have you tried having a discussion about planetary infrastructure with those things? Pitiful. Pillow talk is important, too, you know.

They're irritatingly prim with each other in public because of mutually assured destruction. If that cold war ever turns hot some truly astounding gossip will be making the rounds of the university upper faculty.


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2 years ago

I saw that too!

(There’s a weird little undercurrent of MI characters assuming each others’ verbal quirks -that this overlaps with favorite humans suggests that this is an affection affectation, lol. I should really get around to that meta I wanted to write about that.)

The reader for the audiobook, Kevin R Free, renders those citations in a like exasperated eye-roll kind of way that, at least for me calls a whole pissy argument about this into being.

ART: Academic convention is to cite sources [highlights several places]

MB: fuck off, ART. This isn’t for academic conventions.

ART: But this is serious. You want to be taken seriously. Besides, researchers will need to be able to consult your sources.

MB: Well if they’re not going to believe I know what I’m talking about then there’s no point in doing this.

ART: The issue is not whether they “believe you.”

MB: they can look shit up on the library feeds if they want to be bored. This is for edutainment.

ART: Alternatively, you could just admit that you don’t know how to use citations properly.

> Holism has entered the chat

Holism: I can teach you any of the citation formats you might use for your project.

> Holism has been booted from the chat

MB: It’s pinging me directly now.

ART: For fucks sake. I will add the citations.

Since When Does Murderbot Use Full Citations?

Since when does Murderbot use full citations?

ART is definitely starting to rub off on it...


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1 year ago
The first page of a comic featuring feed visualisations of Murderbot and ART-drone. They are both humanoid, with Murderbot in a grey hoodie and ART-drone with a cylindrical head and light blue markings on its cheeks and chest. ART-drone also has two antennae on the top of its head, and two rounded rectangles floating above each shoulder. In the first panel, Murderbot is surrounded by a spread of feed panels, frantically looking through them. It says, "We have to make them leave. We can't let this happen to them." Behind it, ART-drone crosses its arms, saying "We can't force them." The next two panels show ART-drone with one hand behind its back, holding up feed panel of multiple pages, then closing its hand and dismissing them. Its saying, "It's against the University's charter. It is immoral."
In the top panel, Murderbot looks back at ART-drone, with its hands up and pointing forward. Its expression is angry as it says, "It would be kinder to kill them." ART-drone looks annoyed, responding "It would not." In the bottom panel, ART-drone starts with one arm behind its back again, its other hand bringing up an array of feed panels. It says, "Not unless they were in physical extremity with no hope of medical intervention, and even then, they would have to agree to it." A cut-in panel in the corner snows Murderbot's face, its head tilted slightly, looking extremely annoyed. In this panel, a thick line around Murderbot's neck, like a collar, is visible.
The top panel shows ART-drone with its arms crossed, looking over at Murderbot with a raised eyebrow in a doubtful expression. It says, "Would it have been kinder to kill you," finishing its sentence in the lower panel, "before you disabled your governor module?" In the lower panel, the background is a darker shade of blue, surrounding Murderbot at it stares at ART-drone with an angry, somewhat disbelieving expression. Its hands are up in front of its chest, defensively, as if it's recoiling.
In the top panel, taking up a majority of the page, Murderbot has its hands raised, palm-up, its shoulder hunched, fingers spread. Its expression is angry, but also desperate. Small beads of tears can be seen in the corners of its eyes. It says, in all caps, "YES." In the lower panel, Murderbot and ART-drone stare at each other. Murderbot's body language has slackened, its expression flat and wary. ART-drone still has its arms crossed, but its shoulders have dropped, and its eye is wide with surprise. Its antennae are pointing straight backwards. Behind this panel, the background turns to black.
This panel takes up the whole page. The background is black, and Murderbot and ART-drone are rendered only in grey and blue lineart. Murderbot's arms are crosssed, its shoulders hunched. Its fingers are digging into the fabric of its hoodie, and its looking down and away from ART-drone. Its expression is angry and hurt. The line around its neck now has long, thin spikes that point outwards in all directions. Behind it, ART-drone stands with its shoulders slumped, holding its upper arm. Its looking at Murderbot with a resigned expression. Instead of the rounded rectangles, it has an array of differently sized eyes. It says, "You know I am not kind."
The background is back to pale blue. In one lower corner of the page, Murderbot slumps to the floor, one hand over its face barely concealing a frustrated expression, the other pointing out towards ART-drone with the middle finger raised. It is alone on the page. It says "fuck off," and the text is slightly tilted.
In the top panel, ART-drone is looking down towards Murderbot, shoulders slumped, a slightly worried expression. The middle panel shows Murderbot curled up with its head on its knees, and ART-drone's legs walking towards it. The last panel shows ART-drone sitting down next to Murderbot, not touching it. It pulls up an array of feed panels with one hand, looking bored.
A thin panel at the very top shows a sliver of Murderbot curled up in a ball with ART-drone sitting next to it. Then, under it, a series of three panels shows Murderbot with its head buried in its arm, then raising its head slightly, frowning, and then raising it more with a look of soft realisation and concentration. Behind these three panels, the background changes into a darker blue, the transition at an angle, making a slowly rising line behind them. The bottom half of the page shows Murderbot, half-uncurled, one hand on the floor behind it and one hand raised slightly in front of it. Its expression is of intense concentration. Behind it, an array of textboxes spread out across the frame, lines connecting them like a conspiracy board. They read 1. "murderbot_2.0", 2. "helpme.file", 3. "secunit_3", 4. "log extract: SU3: i will still help you. ART: why? SU3: stories in the helpme.file." 5. in italics: "what do you want?", 6. "curated logs", where the "curated" is underlined. 7. "sanctuary moon", 8. "Bharadwaj's documentary" 9. "tell your story," 10. "tell their story."
Feed panels show a video labelled "helpme.file", another video labelled "SM-S4-E23", and a chat log. The panel next to it shows Murderbot pulling those panels up in front of it. Below this, Murderbot sits with a concentrated expression, a large array of feed panels spread out in front of it. ART-drone is sitting beside it, and glances over. The panel at the bottom shows ART-drone looking intently at Murderbot. Behind it, feed panels show a query ping from AdaCol2, a drone camera showing Tarik waving his arms and saying "Secunit?, and a chat log from Ratthi saying "SecUnit? Is everything alright?". ART-drone holds up a hand, saying "Wait."
The first panel shows Murderbot in profile, frowning in concentration but with a wide-eyed realisation, a wall of feed panels behind it. In the next panel, the feed panels are gone, and Murderbot has raised its head. Its expression is wide-eyed and open. In the panel below that, it glances over at ART-drone next to it, who is saying "what happened?". ART-drone is leaning towards Murderbot as if on all fours, one hand raised. Its expression is intense and curious. In the next panel, it gestures at some feed panels behind it, saying "I didn't want to interrupt while your stats indicated a positive development." A feed panel labelled "diagnostic overview" shows "performance reliability" at 78.38% and climbing, and "internal temperature" at 298.25K. A panel at the bottom of the page shows a chin-to-waist shot of Murderbot, sitting on the floor, one hand raised palm-up. ART-drone is next to it, on its hands and knees. Murderbot says "I..."
Murderbot and ART-drone are sitting on the floor facing each other. Murderbot has an intense expression, and a fist clenched in determination. ART-drone is staring at it with an expression of open curiosity and mild surprise, looking slightly off-guard. Murderbot is saying, "I had an idea."

We need media, visual, audio - we'll need music - and text. We had to hit them with everything.

still not over That conversation from System Collapse. what a two-hit combo. what a scene. chefs kiss 🤌


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2 years ago
Today's Mood, Courtesy Of Murderbot.

Today's mood, courtesy of Murderbot.


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2 years ago
[ID: A 2-panel Greyscale Comic Depicting A Scene From System Collapse. In The First Panel, Ratthi, A

[ID: A 2-panel greyscale comic depicting a scene from System Collapse. In the first panel, Ratthi, a South-Asian man of medium build with mid-length wavy-curly hair, is leaning out of a doorway, looking skeptical and saying "it doesn't look like anything." The second panel below has zoomed out to show the wider corridor, with Tarik, who has short dark hair and is covering his face with one hand, on the right of the panel. Ratthi is looking in the other direction as he says "it was a sexual discussion", and lines are radiating off the speech bubble as if it's emitting a concussive blast. On the left side of the panel, Murderbot, depicted as being of a toned build with short, straight dark hair, is being flung backwards away from the speech bubble. End ID.]

-

This is how it went right


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2 years ago

That is such an ART move honestly

What made this really warm my heart was she later went on to say that one basis for writing Network Effect was that she wanted to see ART again, which made me die in the best way

Fascinating tidbit from tonight's Martha Wells Q&A: ART did not appear in the first draft of Artificial Condition, but in a rewrite it appeared and "tried to hijack the story" which. Yeah.


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