Exit Strategy

Trace the development of trust between Murderbot and the human members of the Preservation team. How does their evolving alliance, built on shared risk and mutual competence, offer a direct counter-narrative to the contract-based relationships that define the Corporation Rim?

How does the anxious and sardonic first-person narrative voice dismantle corporate dehumanization by immersing the reader in the consciousness of a being legally defined as property?

Exit Strategy presents three distinct forms of non-human intelligence: Murderbot, the Combat SecUnit, and the disembodied code-based attacker. What do these characters suggest about the relationship between embodiment, programming, and the potential for moral agency?

Discuss how the novella’s settings, from the impersonal transit hubs to the heavily secured corporate station of TranRollinHyfa, reflect the corporate feudalism of the world depicted in the series.

Why does the corporate logic embodied by Serrat and the bond company refuse to see Murderbot as a self-directed being? From their perspective, how does Murderbot represent a catastrophic system failure and a dangerous, untraceable asset?

How does Exit Strategy construct an alternative model of personhood that is defined against, rather than in aspiration to, human standards?

The novella critiques the transactional nature of corporate contracts and bonds. How does Murderbot’s relationship with Dr. Mensah and her team establish an alternative, non-contractual model of loyalty and obligation?

Analyze Dr. Mensah and Serrat as ideological foils. How do their respective interactions with and perceptions of Murderbot represent two opposing views on the nature of personhood, value, and power?