Rogue Protocol

“(If it wasn’t for the shows I downloaded from the entertainment feed, I would have thought the only way most humans knew how to communicate was by pointing and shouting.)”

Murderbot’s attention to television dramas (which are implied to be most like soap operas, with long, elaborate emotional arcs) serves both as a source of entertainment and as a source of knowledge about the mental and emotional processes of humans. This way of thinking and feeling is important to Murderbot, as it lives in a human-controlled world but does not have a human mind. Its claim that the shows introduce new ways of human interaction also indicates that humans are routinely hostile to bots and constructs.

“Ratthi had said using constructs was slavery but at least I hadn’t had to pay the company for my repair, maintenance, ammo, and armor. Of course, nobody had asked me if I wanted to be a SecUnit, but that’s a whole different metaphor.”

Murderbot here muses on the narrow difference between GrayCris’s long-term indentured servitude contracts in the Corporation Rim and its use of constructs, which Murderbot comes to increasingly liken to enslavement as the series progresses. Both reflect Corrupt Labor Practices in Corporate Dystopias. Murderbot’s comment here does not aim to undermine the severity of enslavement, but rather to highlight the lack of ethics of the terms of servitude—as the indentured people are not paid until the end of their decades-long contracts, during which time they will wrack up heavy debts to GrayCris, perpetuating the need for them to sell their labor cheaply.

“[Dr. Mensah] had meant to ship me home to Preservation, where she would have, I don’t know, civilized me, or educated me, or something. I was vague on the details. The only thing I knew for certain was that Preservation didn’t need SecUnits, and their idea of a SecUnit being considered a free agent meant I’d have a human ‘guardian.’ (In other places they just call that your owner.)”

Murderbot’s observation about Dr. Mensah’s intentions indicates the inherent injustices in human-construct relationships, given the legal and ideological constraints on personhood both in and outside the Corporation Rim. Though Mensah intended to free Murderbot, her version of freedom is one that, Murderbot notes, resembles another form of ownership. Wells’s invocation of “education” and “civilization” as beneficial concepts for those liberated from slavery echoes abolitionist (but ultimately still keenly racist) ideologies in the antebellum United States, indicating that Mensah (and indeed all humans in the world of the series) is limited in her ability to truly see constructs as equals.

“The investigation of GrayCris being conducted by the news agencies was turning up other incidents that suggested the attack on DeltFall was more business as usual for them than an aberration (This is my surprised face.)”

The overlap between corporate and government powers in the Corporation Rim means that the only true “investigation” into GrayCris is one that happens in the public eye via the media rather than through official channels. Murderbot doesn’t necessarily indicate that this revelation of wrongdoing has any material effect, however. Murderbot’s lack of surprise at GrayCris’s wrongdoing suggests that the corporation’s malfeasance is not a secret being revealed—which, in turn, indicates that revealing their evil will not actually push them to stop committing it.

“I could tell [the show] was headed toward a depressing ending, and I just wasn’t in the mood. It was especially annoying because I could see how the addition of a heroic SecUnit and maybe some interesting alien remnants could have turned it into a great adventure story.”

Murderbot’s mental rewriting of the show it watches to include a possible heroic SecUnit (despite its immediate consideration that no such things exist) indicates that part of its mental autonomy includes the ability to imagine itself—or others like itself—as protagonists in a narrative. As it suspects GrayCris of illegally harvesting alien remains, this is also a tongue-in-cheek prediction about Rogue Protocol’s plot—though one that contains some misdirection, as the alien remnants never appear on the page.

“(I saw [my hard currency card] still had plenty of money left on it; Tapan and the others must have paid me a lot.)”

Murderbot’s offhand comment that it “must have” been paid a lot (after the events in Artificial Condition) indicates its lack of interest in money and wealth accrual. This sets Murderbot apart from the central ideology of the Corporation Rim, in which the entire society is structured around GrayCris’s desire for profits. This viewpoint is one, the novel suggests, that even the “good” humans in the text cannot access.

“Bots were more common for combat than humans for the same reason SecUnits were more common for security contracts: if we don’t follow orders, we get our brains fried. But there were joint corporate and other political entry treaties about the use of combat bots. (Though everybody seemed to find ways around that. It was a pretty common plot on some of the serials from outside the Corporation Rim.)”

Murderbot’s discussion of the serials from outside GrayCris’s control indicates that media is one of the few forms of dissent available to those who might seek to criticize the Corporation Rim. Like with media reports of GrayCris’s crime, however, this criticism is not shown to be material; GrayCris still exploits bot labor and human lives alike and still uses illegal bots when it suits them.

“Usually these markers are only used for emergency procedures because they work even if the power is down. I had never seen them used for ads before. The whole point of markers was that they were the only thing visible in a power outage so it would be easy to see them. It was hard enough trying to get stupid humans to follow the markers to safety without ads popping up obscuring the emergency route.”

The appearance of ads in place of emergency exit directions highlights the corporate excess that characterizes life in the Corporation Rim. Though Murderbot has never seen ads precisely like these, it is not unduly surprised to learn that GrayCris would risk people’s lives on the possibility that it might make a profit.

“Hirune’s face now had the blank, lip-biting expression I associated with humans trying not to show their feelings, especially the feeling that someone had said something unintentionally hilarious. (This is why it had been a struggle for me to give up armor; concealing facial expressions was hard, even for humans.)”

Murderbot’s efforts to appear humanlike are stymied by difficulty understanding and hiding human emotions. When it recognizes that Hirune is also struggling to convey the emotions she wishes to convey, it both connects Murderbot to a human and distances it from human emotion. This paradoxical effect frequently characterizes Murderbot’s interactions with humans and humanity broadly and demonstrates the Challenges Facing Authentic Relationships Between Humans and AI.

“Had the humans actually coded [Miki] to be childlike, or petlike, I guess? Or had its code developed that way on its own, responding to the way they treated it?”

Murderbot’s questions about the origin of Miki’s personality speak to the issues of agency for constructs. The idea that Miki might be childlike because it was coded to be or because it responded to its treatment alludes to the “nature versus nurture” debate in human development. In Miki’s case, however, this “nature” isn’t natural but rather designed by humans who benefit from it acting in certain ways, raising questions about Artificial Intelligence and Personhood.

“I had seen on some media from outside the Corporation Rim that internal security was less of an issue there, that the focus was on potential external threats more than it was on policing your own people. I hadn’t thought it was true, but it did mesh in with the lack of interest in monitoring the station staff in their private quarters.”

Throughout the series Murderbot recognizes that it was unjustly controlled by GrayCris. This comment about GrayCris’s observation of its people indicates that this control extends to the human population of the Corporation Rim, as well. This illustrates that the totalitarian control of the novella’s corporate dystopia includes a surveillance state so omnipresent that Murderbot notes its absence rather than its presence.

“I could have taken Miki over, done what I wanted, and excised it all from its memory. I had done it to Ship, but Ship was a low-level bot and didn’t have enough self-awareness to give a shit. Doing that to Miki…But I didn’t know what I would do if it said no.”

Murderbot’s different levels of willingness to “take over” Miki and Ship indicate how it imagines the personhood or sentience of the different bots. Its moral line on this matter has to do with self-awareness; as Miki is sentient enough to understand itself as being taken over, Murderbot finds it immoral to do so—even when it desperately needs Miki’s aid.

“Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it.

I signaled to Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.”

Murderbot’s feeling about Miki never being mistreated has less to do with Miki than it does with Murderbot’s history of being nearly constantly mistreated by humans. Though Murderbot is skeptical of Miki’s “friendship” with Don Abene, it also feels emotional (though it is unwilling or unable to name this emotion) at thinking of the gap between the two experiences of construct-human interaction.

“‘Little bot,’ seriously? (Somewhere there had to be a happy medium between being treated as a terrifying murder machine and being infantilized.)”

Though Murderbot notes that Miki’s human companions are kind to Miki, it also highlights that this kindness does not translate to offering Miki agency. Instead, Miki is trapped in a form of perpetual childhood in which its role seems to be to make those humans feel good about their own kindness. This, in turn, makes the relationship emotionally exploitative, even when both sides seek genuine friendship.

“I split my attention into seven streams, one for each human’s helmet camera plus Miki.”

Murderbot’s ability to simultaneously manage numerous “streams” of input differentiates its ability to think from the way that humans think—as it later notes, humans can only pay attention to one thing at a time. Narratively, this lets Wells approximate a more omniscient narration, even as Murderbot remains a first-person narrator, as it can see what is happening to all characters, not just itself.

“Oh, a running joke, those aren’t annoying at all. Wilken and Gerth ignored the byplay.”

Though Murderbot’s antisocial tendencies sometimes align it with Wilken and Gerth, this is a misdirection, as Wilken and Gerth are later revealed to be secretly working for GrayCris. This, combined with Murderbot’s skepticism about Don Abene’s (and Dr. Mensah’s) kindness toward bots indicates that this kindness or social acuity is not a sign of moral correctness in the novel. The reveal of Wilken and Gerth’s perfidy suggests that the absence of social smoothness is not an indication of morality, either. Having a social circle is thus presented as not indicative of character.

“It shouldn’t have been weird, but it was weird. […] There was something about this place that made my human skin prickle under my clothes. I hated that.”

Murderbot is a construct made from partially organic parts. Here, it uses human physiological sensations of skin prickling to identify unclear emotions like “weirdness.” This indicates that it has access to some forms of human knowledge—and that these forms of knowledge might be beneficial and useful forms of input despite the way Murderbot routinely denigrates humans’ illogical decision-making.

“(Actually geological manipulation semiautonomous…something something, apparently I deleted that out of permanent storage. Anyway, they aren’t bots.)”

Murderbot’s limited memory storage is something that stops it from completely being an all-knowing figure in the text. Though these limits function more hypothetically than materially (Murderbot doesn’t know the name of this kind of construct, for example, but never lacks crucial information that affects the plot), they do suggest that Murderbot is not invulnerable, which adds tension to the narrative.

“Oh, Murderbot, what did you do?

(I don’t even know. I suspect it has to do with the fact that I went from being told what to do and having every action monitored to being able to do whatever I wanted, and somewhere along the way my impulse control went to hell).”

This excerpt contains the sole instance of Murderbot using its chosen tongue-in-cheek name for itself. It also addresses the lingering limits that come from having one’s agency stripped away; once that agency is regained, the ability to make decisions may remain compromised by this trauma.

“I’ve never worked with a SecUnit before—I’ve never seen or interacted with a SecUnit before—so please tell me if you need any information or instruction from me.

I had never had a human ask me how to give me orders before. It was an interesting novelty.”

Murderbot’s observation that Don Abene’s comment is really just another way to ask how to give orders highlights the unequal relationship between a human and a (non-hacked) construct. If Murderbot were not hacked, it would be compelled to follow Abene’s orders—a compulsion that makes any equality impossible, again pointing toward the challenges facing authentic relationships between humans and AI.

“(That’s how SecUnits are taught to fight: throw your body at the target and kill the shit out of it, and hope they can fix you in a repair cubicle. Yes, I’m aware I didn’t have armor or access to a repair cubicle anymore, very aware, but old habits die hard.)”

The way SecUnits are taught to fight indicates how they are both valuable and disposable to GrayCris. Because they can be repaired, their pain is treated as immaterial, and their lives, because they are manufactured, are treated as having value only to their manufacturer, not to themselves.

“We were talking about GrayCris here, whose company motto seemed to be ‘profit by killing everybody and taking their stuff.’”

GrayCris’s supposed “motto” highlights the novel’s treatment of capitalism as inherently unethical and links it to the corrupt labor practice in corporate dystopia. If profit is the central motivator for a powerful agency, it will inevitably, the text argues, act in a way that harms people, as taking care of others is not a profitable project—as is evidenced by the way Murderbot often receives no thanks for its aid.

“A normal SecUnit (you know, one that still had its governor module, less anxious than me but probably more depressed) could do this part.”

Murderbot’s understanding that “normal,” un-hacked SecUnits are depressed as a function of their enslavement emphasizes that it does not consider itself more valuable or more sentient than other SecUnits just because it has hacked its governor module, the thing that gives it self-determination. Rather, it is different because it is able to act on these feelings—not because it possesses them.