#This is easier to read when I can centre align the descriptions but tumblr is silly soo

[lexicals]

I said I’d post this the other day and then Completely forgot but here is the first bit of…… murderbot the movie?? I don’t even know if I can call this a fic but it’s basically how I would want a visual adaptation of the series to be, so it’s in (attempted) script format, hopefully it’s still decent to read :v

Edit bc I still get the occasional note on this and people don't seem to know: there's an expanded version of this on ao3!

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[Opening: fade from black into a slow drone sweep over an alien planetary landscape. The music is dramatic, swelling. We see stretches of ocean, then beaches--]

VOICEOVER: [Sigh.]

[--plains, mountains, jungle--]

V/O (MUTTERED): Come on. This isn't a nature documentary, no-one cares about the stupid planet.

[The footage fast-forwards, and then returns to normal speed. From a distance, we see a ship landing on an open plain, and several people in environmental suits exiting it.]

V/O: Wait - they're starting here? What's next, 'once upon a time'?

[Footage continues, but the audio is muted.]

V/O: That's not how - this is gonna put people to sleep. This is could put me to sleep, and aside from the obvious reasons that would be an achievement, I have tens of thousands of hours of experience being so bored out of my mind that I'd watch just about—

[A pause. The footage continues to play unhindered.]

V/O: Huh. New idea.

[Cut to black.]

V/O: I'm telling the story now.

[Extreme fast forward, under title credits. The footage stops at the beach survey area, with BHARADWAJ and VOLESCU working crouched at the bottom of one crater, and SECUNIT standing at the edge of it. Sound is low, but not entirely muted.]

V/O: Okay, this should work.

[Medium shot of BHARADWAJ and VOLESCU working in the crater. An overlay annotates their feed IDs - name, gender, occupation.]

V/O: So, hopefully it's obvious by now that this whole… thing, is about a planetary survey group. It consisted of six humans, one augmented human, and one contracted SecUnit. Me.

[Pan up and zoom to the edge of the crater, where SECUNIT is standing guard.]

V/O: If it looks boring standing there like that, that's because it is. This whole contract had been going smoothly, so I didn't exactly have much to do. Which is why at that moment I was only half paying attention to what was going on while I tried to figure out if I could stream music this far away from the habitat without anyone noticing. If I'd had another few minutes, I might have managed it, too.

[Overlay: a stream of feed-code showing SECUNIT'S progress as it continues to stand completely still, outwardly emotionless.]

V/O: Music was just one option, anyway. At this point in my existence, I'd consumed about 35,000 hours' worth of various media. Since then, it's been a few thousand hours more. Which is how I know that when you're telling a story, you never start at the fucking beginning.

[THE WORM bursts up out of the ground, half-eating BHARADWAJ and knocking VOLESCU to the ground. The footage freezes on that tableau.]

V/O: You start at the part that makes people pay attention.

[A beat to let that sit. Somehow it feels smug.]

V/O: This next part's too fast for most humans to see properly, so I'll slow it down a little.

[Footage begins to play at 75% speed. It still looks fast as SECUNIT jumps from the top of the crater, draws its weapon, removes BHARADWAJ from THE WORM’S mouth and shoves its arm inside to fire down its throat and (hopefully) at its brain. Overlays show the chaotic feed from MedSystem, HubSystem, etc. THE WORM recedes, and footage returns to normal speed. When the shot shows SECUNIT again, it's badly bloodied, revealing the metal sections of its frame, but the worst of it is quickly blurred out.]

V/O: Ugh, no-one wants to see that. Least of all me. All you need to know is that there was a lot of leaking, and yes, it hurt a lot, at least before I turned my pain sensors down. Then it only hurt a little. But, I was replaceable, and the humans weren't.

[SECUNIT adjusts BHARADWAJ in its arms and starts making for the edge of the crater, before pausing and looking back at VOLESCU. The overlays clogging the screen gradually clear, with the abort order from HubSystem being the last to go.]

SECUNIT: Dr. Volescu, you need to come with me, now.

[VOLESCU appears incoherent with fear.]

V/O: Great situation, right? One human critically injured, me so badly damaged I could barely hold her, the other human losing his shit - not that I didn't understand the feeling - and no telling if or when the hostile fauna was going to come back to finish us off. I didn't really have any choice but to do something drastic.

[The face plate on its helmet retracts. Its expression is neutral-gentle, focused on VOLESCU.]

SECUNIT: Dr. Volescu, it's gonna be fine, okay? But you need to get up and come help me get her out of here.

[VOLESCU stares for a moment, and then scrambles up and over to SECUNIT, grabbing its arm. They start making their way up the side of the crater. The audio is almost completely muted, but we can see SECUNIT and VOLESCU talking the whole time.]

V/O: Now, I don't know what kind of backwater polities they're planning on broadcasting this to, so if you've never seen a SecUnit before - first of all, congratulations on not being in a corporate mining installation. Second of all: some background.

V/O: A SecUnit is physically part-bot, part-human-organic-material, and mentally equal parts depressed, anxious, and paranoid. We're manufactured at the absolute lowest cost possible to act as Security for survey teams, mining operations - basically wherever you need someone to stand around for hours on end making sure humans don't get killed or kill each other, and also to datamine the shit out of everything they say and do. For some reason, they decided we should have human faces. To make us more approachable, or something. Which is completely redundant when 99.9% of humans never see our faces anyway because we're always in armour.

[The group reaches the top of the crater, and VOLESCU collapses. SECUNIT is trying to coax him away from the edge until a hopper lands nearby, and it turns to look. Its helmet goes back up.]

V/O (QUIETLY): [Sigh.] I miss that armour.

[The hopper ramp opens, and PIN-LEE and ARADA exit, heading for the group, who are slowly coming to meet them. One of them makes to take BHARADWAJ.]

SECUNIT (OVER COMM): Dr. Mensah, I can't let go of her suit.

[We see Mensah at the hopper controls. She pauses for a moment, and then:]

MENSAH: That's alright, bring her up into the crew cabin.

V/O: She would've bled out if I'd let go.

[The group make their way into the hopper, ARADA helping VOLESCU, then SECUNIT with BHARADWAJ, and then PIN-LEE, who is armed with a small pistol and watching the landscape.]

V/O: You'll notice she had to give me verbal permission to do that. That's because normally, SecUnits ride in the cargo hold with the rest of the equipment. Maybe that sounds like a horrifying thing to do to a sentient being, and in hindsight yeah, I guess it was, but I actually preferred it. It meant I didn't have to interact with people.

[RATTHI waits until the rest are on board, then jumps to his feet.]

RATTHI: I'll get the cases!

EVERYONE: NO!

PIN-LEE: For fuck's sake, Ratthi!

[PIN-LEE halts him by the arm as the hopper begins to take off. Right as the ramp retracts, THE WORM once again emerges from the ground and almost takes a chunk out of the metal.]

RATTHI, ARADA, PIN-LEE, VOLESCU: [SCREAMING.]

[Audio dips again as SECUNIT keeps speaking, over the crew righting themselves, gently admonishing RATTHI, taking stock, and starting to treat BHARADWAJ and VOLESCU. It seems to fade into the background amid the human commotion, only moving when instructed and not interacting with anyone.]

V/O: And maybe some of you, probably not many, are thinking, "but these humans seem nice, why would they treat a person like that?" and the answer is: they had no idea I was a person. Honestly, I barely knew I was a person, and I was actively trying to prevent anyone else from figuring that out. SecUnits aren't supposed to be people, we're supposed to be a step above human-form security bots, and we did used to be, but a construct with limited intelligence makes mistakes, which means it needs a human supervisor, which defeats the whole point of having an expendable security unit. So they gave us human brain tissue, made us smarter, and to make sure that didn't give us any ideas, added a governor module that sends a high-voltage shock through our nervous system if we step out of line.

[The hopper continues to travel back towards the habitat. The footage becomes more of a montage, showing the flight, landing, and other team members coming to meet everyone as they disembark. Once it's placed BHARADWAJ onto a gurney, SECUNIT is left outside alone as the others rush away - an overlay shows it checking systems, sealing the hoppers, and setting a security interdict.]

V/O: If that sounds unethical to you, you're most likely not from the Corporation Rim. Not that I necessarily disagree, and neither did most of this survey team, as far as I could tell. Dr. Mensah hadn't even wanted to bring me along in the first place for that exact reason, but you don't get to go to unexplored survey planets without a company bond, and a company bond requires a SecUnit. So there I was. I figured they were doing their best to just forget I was there.

[It starts limping back into the habitat, slowly and dripping fluids as it goes. Eventually, it reaches the security ready room. Narration over this:]

V/O: For the record, I wasn't offended about them not wanting me - I wouldn't have wanted a terrifying bot/human construct following me around and recording all my conversations either. Also, they had no idea that they had been saddled with the only company unit that didn't actually have to do anything they said. I do a really good impression of a SecUnit whose governor module actually still works.

[The door to the ready room closes behind it. The suit helmet retracts. There's a moment of silence, and then it sighs, looking marginally more relaxed. Very marginally.]

[It begins to strip off what’s left of its armour, and starts to patch the worst of the damage - this isn't shown in detail. Conspicuously, any company logos on it or the equipment have been blurred out. Over this, the narration continues:]

V/O: Now that we've got the gasping and fainting out of the way, I can cover the big stuff. Yes, I could have gone on a killing spree and become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor. Yes, I did consider it. Then I found something better to do.

[Having treated what it can, SECUNIT wraps itself in a survival blanket, attaches the repair and resupply leads and climbs into its cubicle, visibly shivering. A small overlay shows its performance reliability at 59%, and immediately drops to 58%. White lights fade up, and it lets out what might be a sigh of relief. Another overlay appears, and opening credits with a theme song begin to play: Sanctuary Moon.]

V/O: I found the entertainment channels.

[SecUnit closes its eyes. The theme continues to play for a few seconds as we start to fade to black.]

[…]

[SFX: A triple knock.]

#murderbot #fic tag #Like is this even fanfiction any more lmao….. idc either way this was fun #This is easier to read when I can centre align the descriptions but tumblr is silly soo