#gurathinista

[rosewind2007]

I saw a great blog talking about how MB thinks Ratthi is cool when canonically he’s a nerd…

Well: counterpoint (sort of):

Murderbot describes Gurathin as this loner nerd with no friends who spends most of his time reading scientific papers in lounges with lots of plants; and who need to get his glasses visual augments checked

Gurathin who is canonically the only person (other than ART—which is canonically a mega-genius) to spot MB is a rogue

The one who figures out the way to hack GrayCris

The one who stays calm in the Serrat situation, producing instant “convincing” actually pretty fake documents and (in the fight) actually enabling Pin-Lee to grab his communicator

The one who opens the barriers, saving MB’s life

Oh and he often points out flaws in MB’s plans

And in Network Effect MB says (much as it hates to admits it) it wishes he was there…

Gurathin is a little bit unusual—and MB seems to miss this

#Gurathin #murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #murderbot my beloved #gurathin my beloved #gurathinista #secunit #martha wells #all systems love #exit strategy #network effect #fugitive telemetry #by fugitive telemtery gurathin is teasing murderbot in the feed like a best friend is

[rosewind2007]

Some people ship their Murderbot Diaries blorbos, so I think it’s fair to ask the question:

Does Murderbot ship its Sanctuary Moon blorbos?

We don’t have directly textural evidence, BUT:

Overse and Arada were a couple.. and they were best friends with Ratthi. Ratthi had an unrequited thing for Pin-Lee… Volescu admired Mensah to the point where he might have a crush on her. Pin-Lee did too…she and Bharadwaj flirted

I’m saying yes, yes it does

NB Gurathin was the only loner, but he seemed to like being with the others. He had a small, quiet smile, and they all seemed to like him.

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #secunit #shipping #shipping is fun #gurathinista #gurathin #pin lee #mensah #Bharadwaj #ratthi #Volescu #arada #overse

[rosewind2007]

PresAux:

Mensah, married with children (in a poly marriage)

Volescu, married with children (in a poly marriage)

Arada and Overse married to each other—also share a cabin with Ratthin in Network Effect and Overse shares a couch with him (they snore)

Bharadwaj bit of mystery, flirts with Pin-Lee according to MB (unreliable narrator and surveillance bot, can we trust it?)

Pin-Lee flirts with Bharadwaj and crushes on Mensah (again according to MB, let’s face it everything we know we know from it so some of it we do have to trust?)

Ratthi, according to MB: I knew from threat assessments on Ratthi's associates that he had a lot of relationships with all genders of humans and augmented humans and he and they all seemed very happy about it

Gurathin? Gurathin didn’t have any other (other than Ratthi) human friends from what I could tell

It does seem Gurathin is rather the odd one out

I do wonder if at some point some poor unfortunate soul* is going to suggest to Gurathin that one reason he and SecUnit get along is that he’s ace and you can just imagine them suddenly finding themselves under a laser intense glare and being asked icily:

Gurathin—Yes, I’m ace, but what exactly does that have to do with anything?

Poor unfortunate soul—Well, you’re ace and SecUnit is…

Gurathin—SecUnit is?

Poor unfortunate soul—SecUnit…

Gurathin—Yes, SecUnit is a SecUnit; so nothing in common with me at all

*I dunno, maybe one of Peri’s crew?

#asexual #Murderbot #Gurathin #the Murderbot diaires #murderbot diaries #secunit #gurathin my beloved #gurathinista

[rosewind2007]

Murderbot: on the surface apparently just dealing with terrifying high stakes shit like worms erupting out the ground and evil survey teams set on massacring its clients (and that’s just All Systems Red) but inside it’s panicking:

I panic all the time, you just can’t see it, I told her. I added the text signifier for “joke.”

I do notice that it notices that one of its clients stays remarkably calm too:

I stepped away. Overse started toward him and Volescu grabbed his shoulder, but Gurathin waved them off. I hadn’t even left a mark on his neck.

Very noticeably in Exit Stratgey

Gurathin’s asshole effect must come in handy at times like this. With a deeply unimpressed expression, he said, “This way,” and started toward the pod junction.

Ratthi had fallen over a chair trying to get out of the way, and Pin-Lee lost a few seconds getting around him. Gurathin staggered but lunged forward and grabbed Serrat’s other hand. He pried Serrat’s fingers open and Pin-Lee plucked the comm device out.

Anyway, I think Murderbot is slightly (and it’d never admit this) slightly in awe of how unfazed Gurathin generally is

Except about security—he fucking hates distrusts security

In the feed, Gurathin said, We can’t call station security.

even Preservation Security

in Fugitive Telemetry he actually gets a bit angsty, but is absolutely staying to look after Murderbot (it even realizes this)

Gurathin was grimly staring up at the arch of the transit ring’s ceiling; they had both suspected this was coming, that’s why Gurathin had wanted us to leave and then had stayed around himself when we wouldn’t…

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #martha wells #all systems red #exit strategy #fugitive telemetry #gurathin my beloved #gurathinista

[rosewind2007]

More Murderbot and Gurathin—

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War (attributed, and I did look and couldn’t see it so I call probably not actually Sun Tzu)

Which of Murderbot’s “crew” would be able to take it down (take it out) if it did go “kill all the humans” style rogue? I think there’s only really one candidate…

Would Gurathin do it?

#keep your friends close #keep your enemies closer #murderbot ships #the murderbot diaries #tmbd #murderbot x gurathin #gurathin and murderbot #gurathin my beloved #gurathinista

[rosewind2007]

Some fool (not really, ❤️they know exactly what I’m like, thank you for the opportunity to rant @gamebird ) asked me about my take on how Gurathin noticed Murderbot was “rogue” and—

I think the on-site briefing could be the initial thing that made Gurathin suspicious

See All Systems Red:

And it had been hammered into them from the pre-trip orientation, to the waivers they had to sign for the company, to the survey packages with all the hazard information, to their on-site briefing by their SecUnit that this was an unknown, potentially dangerous region on a mostly unsurveyed planet.

We know MB has been getting away with this for almost four years (I’m using 24/365 here not any inter-system variants like Preservation’s 28 hour cycle) so it’s supposed to be good at this! Perhaps Gurathin (my beloved) has heard a few briefings before? They’re always the same—but instead MB injects sarcasm and irony (but maybe only over the feed? Perhaps that’s key here?)

Actually for me I think G’s augments would usually allow him extra connectivity to the SecSystem which includes SecUnits—MB might be bluffing with GrayCris but hmmm…“One of them is an augmented human, a systems engineer. He can make it launch. Check the data you got from our HubSystem. It’s Surveyor Dr. Gurathin.” GrayCris absolutely buy this, and of course G is the one who figures out the critical hack (not MB, which you might expect):

“Gurathin had figured out how to use the hack from their HubSystem into our HubSystem to get access”

Back to my point:

So my take is that right from the start G thinks there’s something odd about SecUnit, but he is perhaps so heavily influenced by CR propaganda and popular culture that he just like MB cannot reconcile this behaviour with a SecUnit, certainly not a rogue one—a rogue would be killing all the humans—so he initially assumes there is something controlling it somewhere? Or that it’s a modified unit? Or he doesn’t know but it’s not a SecUnit because he knows what they’re like and it’s not like this

And my personal take which is that Gurathin really likes (really likes) MB’s feed presence—imagine expecting the standard briefing from a completely emotionless machine and you’re deep in the feed (which Gurathin is a lot of the time) and instead it’s this really subtly funny and ironic version of the briefing, pointing out (really subtly) all the stupid bits which you’ve laughed at (internally before) and it’s just—just like you

And from then on Gurathin is noticing everything/anything, absolutely zeroing in on anything the SecUnit says or does—he can justify this to himself, it’s anomalous, it could be threat—but actually because he wants to be in MB’s company

BUT anyway, back to canon:

Before the worm attack, what is MB doing?

It’s looking at the sky: this is NOT SecUnit behaviour

“The planet had a ring, which from our current position dominated the horizon when you looked out to sea. I was looking at the sky”

I think before the worm attack, remember they’ve been there for three weeks (twenty-two cycles), Gurathin has been just making every excuse to be in the same feed area as MB—because of the anomalies obviously

We know Gurathin is hardly one for the demonstrative displays of emotion*, so why is it in ASR that he’s the one MB notices has a smile? Do we get physical descriptions of the other PresAux team? No we don’t, we get how they’re emotionally connected to each other but nothing about their facial expressions, and then at the end we get:

“Gurathin was the only loner, but he seemed to like being with the others. He had a small, quiet smile, and they all seemed to like him.”

Until the tragic misunderstanding about the governor module I think MB likes Gurathin right back

(Tragic Misunderstand TM)

*in Exit Strategy

“Gurathin came down to the lobby to wait for the GrayCris representative and took a seat in plain view on a lower platform, so stiff he looked more like a SecUnit than I did.”

Also, MB adds there: Well, in his defense it was a nerve-racking situation. No one asked you to defend Gurathin, MB—you DO like him

Anyway, where were we? Back to All Systems Red before the worm attack:—I reckon G knows there’s something seriously anomalous about their SecUnit before the worm attack

Worm attack just throws it all into stark relief and from then on in he’s just trying to make sense of it, as I’ve said before he knows MB isn’t a normal SecUnit AND he tries to get MB to fess up and explain what’s going on!

Look at how when MB does something that IT acknowledges the Governor Module would be triggered by Gurathin is in there querying it:

MB - “They’re supposed to be able to, but equipment failures aren’t unknown.”

👆it says to itself The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company. Gurathin immediately chips in with:

G - “What about your systems?”

MB - “As the only one here with experience in these situations, I’m your best resource.”

👆 It was one of those impulses that comes from my organic parts that the governor is supposed to squash

G - “What situations?”

“Gurathin was in the hub doing something on his personal system. I wondered what he was doing and had just started to carefully poke around through HubSystem to find out.”

Then they get back from DeltFall with tales of rogue SecUnits and horror and death!

And whilst their SecUnit which he already had suspicions of, is out of action (because it shot itself, remember) he finds that:

Yes, it is rogue.

It believes it killed 57 people it was charged with protecting

The fact that he didn’t just immediately permanently put it out of action only serves to support my other, even LESS POPULAR opinion, which is that Gurathin is utterly besotted with Murderbot.

I do think this aspect is much overlooked by a lot of people: until Gurathin looks into its logs he doesn’t know that it (and this is what MB believes and G has no reason to think it’s lying to itself because that’s getting really really complicated into what logs and memories represent in the Murderbot Diaries) killed 57 clients, apparently innocent people—he has lived with it for three weeks, appears to be aware it isn’t what it appears to be BUT is certainly not being negative to it, in fact is smiling more than anywhere else in the book series? Surely this revelation comes as a shock?

Also: do note that Guarthin doesn’t lead with this—you’d think the fact that “This Unit has killed people before, people it was charged with protecting. It killed fifty-seven members of a mining operation.”

Wouldn’t you expect this apparent FACT would be what he’d lead with? But no, he doesn’t.

I mean? Why doesn’t he?

Gurathin is one mixed up person at this point, he’s reeling, I think he wants to believe MB’s version of events, which hey! We later do find out isn’t actually true! It’s not until it visits Ganaka Pit itself that it actually knows what happened…

In canon of course we then move on to the whole it calls itself Murderbot thing, and I would note that a) this is TRUE, and b) it’s Mensah who asks

Anyway, in summary:

Art by the wonderful @cinqueform ❤️

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #martha wells #all systems red #gurathin my beloved #exit strategy #gurathinista #gurathin was right #I mean Gurathin wasn’t right about everything—but he was right about a LOT

[rosewind2007]

Neil Gaiman said:

The point is Fanfiction exists so that you can imagine, enjoy and fill in the gaps. The point is that you can change things and have fun with them. And the stories are absolutely true… for you.

Honestly, if I’m playing with my dolls in my sandpit with my friends don’t come over here and spit at us

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #martha wells #all systems red #asshole research transport #gurathin my beloved #exit strategy #artificial condition #network effect #gurathinista #shipping positivity #shipping discourse #oh fuck not this again

[rosewind2007]

Someone asked about rogues in The Murderbot Diaries and I thought I’d start with All Systems Red:

In All Systems Red there are [15] uses of the word “rogue”.

[1] Page 69 “Mensah gave the orders and we started forward, me in front, the humans a few steps behind. They were in their full suits with helmets, which gave some protection but had been meant for environmental hazards, not some other heavily armed human (or angry malfunctioning rogue SecUnit) deliberately trying to kill them. I was more nervous than Ratthi, who was jittery on our comms, monitoring the scans, and basically telling us to be careful every other step.”

Theoretical rogue SecUnit

Other adjectives: angry, malfunctioning, “trying to kill them [PresAux]”. This is Murderbot’s nightmare rogue; where it got this image of a rogue from we don’t know. The logical assumption (given how it’s been spending the last 35,000 hours) would be media portrayals.

[2&3] Page 76 “Maybe these clients had been terrible and abusive, maybe they had deserved it. I didn’t care. Nobody was touching my humans. To make sure of that I had to kill these two rogue Units. I could have pulled out at this point, sabotaged the hoppers, and got my humans out of there, leaving the rogue Units stuck on the other side of an ocean; that would have been the smart thing to do.

But I wanted to kill them.”

These are now apparent rogue Units and MB does acknowledge possible mitigation, but still wants to kill them, even if this isn’t the smart thing to do.

[4] Page 78 “Even these two rogues wouldn’t be dumb enough to ignore the creaks if I took the quick route and walked over to their position.

(They were not the sharpest murderbots, having cleaned the floor of the between-habitat corridor to cover the prints they had left when staging that body. It would have fooled somebody who hadn’t noticed all the other floors were covered with tracked-in dust.)”

Suggestion they’re dumb, not the sharpest.

[5] Page 86 “Blood ran down my torn suit skin and I reached up to my neck. I expected to feel a gaping hole, but there was something stuck there. “Dr. Mensah, there might be more rogue units, we don’t know—”

By this point Murderbot honestly doesn’t know how many rogue units there are. It’s having a bad time. Also note lack of capital letter—no idea if it’s significant.

[6] Page 87 “The DeltFall SecUnits hadn’t been rogues, they had been inserted with combat override modules. The modules allow personal control over a SecUnit, turn it from a mostly autonomous construct into a gun puppet. The feed would be cut off, control would be over the comm, but functionality would depend on how complex the orders were. “Kill the humans” isn’t a complex order.”

Revelation time! So, ignore all those previous references to the DeltFall units as rogues—they weren’t.

Murderbot is very clear that SecUnit with override module does not equal rogue. It clearly has a firm internal definition of a rogue.

It’s interesting that it sees them as acting like everyone expects rogues to, killing the humans.

[7] Page 88 “The unknown SecUnit inserted a data carrier, a combat-override module. It’s downloading instructions into me and will override my system. This is why the two DeltFall units turned rogue. You have to stop me.”

Here using “turned rogue” though it has already said they weren’t actually rogue: but it’s talking to humans who it reasonably expects to see combat overridden behaviour as rogue behaviour.

[8] Page 92 “Pin-Lee was saying impatiently, “There’s no danger. When it shot itself, it froze the download. I was able to remove the few fragments of rogue code that had been copied over.”

Rogue code—as in code that could have turned Murderbot rogue! Ha! (Not really rogue, obviously)

[9] Page 92 ‘He gestured to me. “This unit was already a rogue. It has a hacked governor module.”’

Oh Gurathin, my beloved: Murderbot fails to appreciate that Gurathin is using the same definition of a rogue as it does: a hacked governor module. I guess it was distracted.

[10] Page 123 “I could leave them to cope on their own, I guess. I pictured doing that, pictured Arada or Ratthi trapped by rogue SecUnits, and felt my insides twist. I hate having emotions about reality; I’d much rather have them about Sanctuary Moon.”

Imaginary rogues here, figments of Murderbot’s imagination—which are either not really rogue units but overridden ones; or it’s just defaulting to its own personal horror tropes?

[11] Page 127 ‘“They may believe the company and whoever your beneficiaries are won’t look any further than the rogue SecUnits. But they can’t make two whole survey teams disappear unless their corporate or political entity doesn’t care about them. Does DeltFall’s care? Does yours?”

That made them all stare at me, for some reason.’

Again, these SecUnits were not the Murderbot definition of rogue, but again it’s talking to humans.

[12] Page 137 “We didn’t know who EvilSurvey was, who we were dealing with. But I bet that they didn’t either. Mensah’s status was only in the Security info packet, stored on SecSystem, which they had never gotten access to. The dueling investigations if something happened to us were bound to be thorough, as the company would be desperate for something to blame it on and the beneficiaries would be desperate to blame it on the company. Neither would be fooled long by the rogue SecUnit setup.”

Murderbot here acknowledges that even the human investigators would be likely fooled for long by the pretend rogues—so again: as far as Murderbot is concerned a combat-override module controlled SecUnit isn’t an actual rogue.

[13{ Page 140 “He said, “Did they punish you, for the deaths of the mining team?”

It wasn’t completely a surprise. I think they all wanted to ask about it, but maybe he was the only one abrasive enough. Or brave enough. It’s one thing to poke a murderbot with a governor module; poking a rogue murderbot is a whole different proposition.”

Here Murderbot refers to itself as a rogue, a rogue murderbot at that, and acknowledges Gurathin knows it’s a rogue and is poking it. Oh these two…

[14&15] Page 154 ‘That was still annoying, even though I knew we had allowed plenty of time for this part. “You used combat override modules to make the DeltFall SecUnits behave like rogues. If you think a real rogue SecUnit still has to answer your questions, the next few minutes are going to be an education for you.”’

Here Murderbot is talking to evil survey, aka GrayCris. The DeltFall units didn’t really behave like rogues, not at all. We have one actual rogue (by the Murderbot definition) and it doesn’t behave like that. Though it does think a SecUnit might if it had been mistreated? Again, it’s talking to humans, and sort of “speaking their language”, but even here it is keen to draw a distinction between a SecUnit with a combat override and a “real rogue SecUnit”.

Fun!

Themes are: a SecUnit with an override module isn’t (as far as Murderbot, our narrator, is concerned anyway) a REAL rogue: it’s just acting how people (humans and Murderbot) expect a rogue to act. Murderbot thinks a real rogue could have reasons to act like that, but its overwhelming (apparently, even stopping it doing the smart thing) sort of automatic urge is to kill rogues (as it sees them as a very real threat to its humans). Of course, in All Systems Red there is exactly one rogue SecUnit (by Murderbot’s definition) and it doesn’t act anything like it and everyone else seem primed to expect (though Murderbot doesn’t think the investigators would be fooled by the fake rogue SecUnits either?).

It’s me so there has to be extra Gurathin content: Gurathin sees a rogue as a SecUnit which has hacked its governor module. He is remarkable in that he doesn’t seem to have bought into the media (news? corporate propaganda?) portrayal of rogue SecUnits

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #secunit #rogue SecUnit #gurathin #gurathinista #meta

[rosewind2007]

From my drone sentries I knew Mensah was in a council meeting now. I tapped Pin-Lee’s feed to check on her but she was in a different meeting. I knew the others were on planet: Dr. Bharadwaj on a family visit and Arada and Overse at the FirstLanding university working on preparation for the survey they wanted to do, and Volescu was retired.

That left me with the human most likely to want to drop everything and come watch me break into a damaged transport

and the

human also most likely to come watch me break into a damaged transport but only so he could argue with me about it.

So I called both of them.

Yeah, Murderbot: I think the SecUnit doth protest TOO much! You didn’t even have to explain WHY you asked Gurathin along…no one would have even questioned it.

Mensah couldn’t make it, Pin-Lee couldn’t make it, the others were on the planet so I HAD to ask Gurathin to come along—even though he would just be annoying and argue with me…

Yeah, yeah.

We believe you…

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #martha wells #gurathin my beloved #fugitive telemetry #murderathin #gurathinista

[rosewind2007]

Forgive me, for I have sinned

(Peccavi)

#murderbot #gurathin my beloved #gurathinista #gurathin #gurathin/Murderbot #murderathin #han solo #princess leia #I love you #i don’t like you

[rosewind2007]

I’ve now seen several people suggest Mads as Gurathin in Murderbot, and actually the idea is growing on me…

I was beginning to think Gurathin’s asshole expression was some congenital condition he had no control over. I said, “The more guards the better.”

He lifted his brows. “Are you going to kill them?”

Scratch that, Gurathin’s asshole expression is due to him being an asshole.

Gurathin’s expression I interpreted as appalled. I still don’t like you, either.

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #martha wells #all systems red #gurathinista #gurathin my beloved #gurathin was right #i love that gurathin is just like 'i know you dont like me but we're friends' and mb is like 'no! we arent!' #mads mikkelsen #Mads m

[rosewind2007]

Since shipping and the Murderbot fandom has come up recently, I present the almost completed (it’s going to have one more chapter) Kiss, which is sort of a distillation of my Murderbot Gurathin ship (my goodness, I could write a thesis on this—but really this fic covers quite a bit); it’s also multi POVs

Chapter 8 is GREAT!

Also, if shipping MB offend you, please block me—because that’s for the best

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #gurathin my beloved #gurathinista #murderbot shipping

[rosewind2007]

Me: I’m going to write a short fic so that Gurathin gets to read poetry to Murderbot

Almost 14K words later…

Yeah, well: plot happened

And aliens!

It’s great fun, by the way. Read it!

There are even illustrations! This lovely one by @gauzyfruitcake

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #all systems red #asshole research transport #gurathinista #gurathin my beloved #gurathin pining #Gurathin/Murderbot #murderathin #ao3 author #ao3fic #shippy #yeah i do have things to say about shipping discourse too but honestly i think this ship deserves some love #shipping murderbot is always going to be controversial in some circles

[rosewind2007]

I cannot stop worrying away at the Gurathin/Murderbot dynamic…

They are EVERyWHERE

Everywhere…

New fic You Were Always on My Mind

Because they are ❤️🚢❤️

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #martha wells #all systems red #asshole research transport #artificial condition #exit strategy #gurathin was right #emotions #short story #gurathin pining #gurathin my beloved #Gurathin #gurathinista #first kiss #kiss #cats #not sure what’s going on here

[rosewind2007]

Just to put in my tuppence worth:

Sci-fi is when my most favourite blorbo is pining to an almost terminal degree with (probably) unreciprocated love for a construct

Fantasy, the other character is probably an elf

#murderbot #gurathinista #gurathin pining #gurathin my beloved #I don’t really read fantasy

[rosewind2007]

I’m writing a Murderbot/Gurathin stuck on a planet together short fic, it’ll be about 3K, “only one bed trope” fluff…

10K words later

“OK- So Aurora is like a sort of alien-pangolin which feeds on alien-giant-termites which we haven’t met yet which build enormous cathedrals of clay…

no? that doesn’t have any plot relevance at all, why should it? I like alien pangolins. The alien termite things are eusocial and have a really interesting genetic system which the story probably will never even mention. And Aurora’s species mostly reproduces via parthenogenesis except when there are exceptionally abundant conditions…plot-relevance? IT’S A SPACE PANGOLIN!!!

I love pangolins

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #gurathin #secunit #martha wells #asshole research transport #pangolins are like kittens crossed with pine cones #pangolin #artwork #my own sketch #gurathin my beloved #i love gurathin he's just like. a stern guy but i think he is pretty cool . he's just...sort of protective of his team . he's not the boss #Gurathin #gurathinista #gurathin pining