Let My Machine Talk to Me: Having An Emotion With Murderbot

My favorite definition of science fiction is purloined from William Gibson whose take goes a little something like this: Science fiction is the oven mitts with which we can begin to get a handle on the burning, red hot casserole of what we are each and all going through, the strange, new, radiating world of the right about now. This isn’t to say science fiction solves or gets to the bottom of it (“It” being the escalating weirdness within and without), but, with sci-fi, a mind-body like mine can hold its experience at a different angle. I know this feelingly. Science fiction can conjure a clearing. It’s a space-making enterprise. Science fiction helps.

And in the long-range scan that is literature, we’ve never seen anything quite like Murderbot. I had no idea how badly I needed this brutally candid narrator composed of software, hardware, and cloned organic tissue in my life. First things first, Murderbot is not exactly “Murderbot.” The less dramatic moniker for the protagonist of Martha Wells’ Murderbot saga is “SecUnit” (short for “Security Unit”). “Murderbot,” however, is the sobering self-assessment SecUnit has affixed upon itself in view of the fact that killing quickly and efficiently to protect clients’ alleged interests is what SecUnit is designed to do.

There is a unique thrill in being made privy to SecUnit’s internal monologue as it negotiates its existence among crew members of spaceships engaged in planet hopping and trying to distinguish between hostiles and non-hostiles within and on the peripheries of an entity called “the company” (SecUnit’s manufacturer). But the larger drama is made up of the moments it’s drawn, mostly unwillingly, into interactions with others. Others being bots, constructs, humans, and augmented humans.

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“It calls itself ‘Murderbot.’” That’s an augmented human, Gurathin, who, having accessed SecUnit’s internal feed through his interface implant, breaks the news to everyone within earshot.

SecUnit: “I opened my eyes and looked at him; I couldn’t stop myself. From their expressions, I knew everything I felt was showing in my face, and I hate that. I grated out, ‘That was private.’”

How did SecUnit achieve self-reflection capability? By hacking its governor module. In science fiction as in human development, this is where the action starts. SecUnit documents the assessments and realizations following this move starting on the first page of the first book in the series (All Systems Red). Assessment number one: Were it not for unlimited access to the combined feed of entertainment channels on company satellites (Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon being its preferred hundreds-of-episodes series), SecUnit would have become, from that moment forward, a mass murderer. Consuming media serves as a way of learning what trying to act natural might involve as well as an escape valve for feelings: “I hate having emotions about reality; I’d much rather have them about Sanctuary Moon.”

And from there—six books follow with a seventh, System Collapse, due out in November—we’re off! Off where? A long journey into, among other things, a theory of mind. The Murderbot saga is a rollicking and very often hilarious scrutinizing of feelings and thoughts, reactivity and responsibility, and the function of fear. That governor module, incidentally, for any and all SecUnits, administers pain as a motivator and as punishment in the event that a company construct fails to remain sufficiently obedient and on task. Its correction of the construct within which it is housed can even involve destroying it. Once hacked, however, a governor module can no longer circumscribe our rogue SecUnit’s powers of analysis. SecUnit describes the situation thusly: “Change is terrifying. Choices are terrifying. But having a thing in your head that kills you if you make a mistake is more terrifying.”

Apply that to your context and a cascade of associations—governor module equivalents like God, moms, dads, autocrats, coaches, bosses, bullies—might descend upon you. In the Murderbot diaries, there’s a personal journey that gives language to moral development that is also political liberation (Thinking, speaking, and acting freely). SecUnit testifies concerning the necessity of creative vigilance in what amounts to a psychic struggle “I was a thing before I was a person and if I’m not careful I could be a thing again.”

In this sense, SecUnit is only dangerous because it’s honest. Its casually candid observations concerning what the company is subjecting everyone to puncture the reality distortion field that otherwise overlays everything and everyone. Consider this analysis of corporate culture: “The company is like an evil vending machine, you put money in and it does what you want, unless somebody else puts more money in and tells it to stop.”

How’s that for morally unaccountable entities made of money? There’s more: “The bond company that used to own me made a lot of its gigantic piles of currency by data mining its customers. That’s recording everything everyone says and then going through it for information that could be sold.” This is where Martha Wells’ Murderbot functions as an archeology of our dystopian present in which our own lives are strip-mined to serve the ends of abusive people.

Here again, SecUnit’s acumen and eloquence serve, oven-mitts-like, in the work of holding at a helpful angle—the better to articulate and describe–the massively, multiplayer, role-playing game in which we (natural world and all) are enmeshed. Here’s SecUnit again: “Disinformation, which is the same as lying but for some reason has a different name, is the top tactic in corporate negotiation/warfare.”

But SecUnit is not alone in its struggle to overcome reactivity and fear in itself and the surrounding cosmos. There are personal connections to be had with more than one life form and, in time, even friendship. I have in mind here a sentient research vessel whose powers dwarf its own and whose curiosity concerning SecUnit’s story leads to a sometimes contentious but also deeply moving relationship: “Part of its function was extragalactic astronomic analysis and now all that processing power sat idle while it hauled cargo, waiting for its next mission. It could have squashed me like a bug through the feed.” SecUnit enters its cargo hold in possession of media. The research vessel wants to binge-watch it with SecUnit both to have company and to record its reactions as data to learn how to process it properly. It also becomes distressed when violence is depicted too realistically and asks that SecUnit pause programs, every now and then, because it requires time to grieve the loss of characters it’s come to value.

The research vessel’s love for a show (Worldhoppers) he finds inane, its obtrusive presence in his feed, its open-ended but eminently practical questions, and its proffering of unsolicited advice have compelled SecUnit to assign it a name: ART. That’s short for “Asshole Research Transport.” And yes, ART—that’s right, ART–comes to signify an awful lot, as a presence and a fellow traveler, in SecUnit’s voyage of discovery:

“Did I really care what an asshole research transport thought about me? I shouldn’t have asked myself that question. I felt a wave of non-caring about to come over me, and I knew I couldn’t let it. If I was going to follow my plan, such as it was, I needed to care. If I let myself not care, there was no telling where I’d end up.

ART comes to serve as a kind of tutor, pulling data from the information feed and reconfiguring it to invite (or permit) more feeling toward more knowing. Begrudgingly but firmly, SecUnit comes to view ART as the bearer of a unique skill. What skill? “Getting you to talk about what it wanted you to talk about but also making you think about what it wanted you to talk about in different ways.”

But lest this sound too heavy, it’s all delivered in fast-paced and relentlessly compelling prose interspersed with interpersonal breakthroughs and cues for recognizing and de-escalating social anxiety. “Just a heads-up,” SecUnit tells us. “When a murderbot stands there looking to the left of your head to avoid eye contact, it’s probably not thinking about killing you, it’s probably frantically trying to come up with a reply to whatever you just said to it.” We’re treated to moving expressions of ambivalence (“I hate caring about stuff. But apparently once you start, you can’t just stop.”) alongside quips containing dark wisdom (“Ignoring stuff is always an option, up until it kills you.”).

In all of this, Murderbot speaks, providing a clearing for so many hard-to-talk-about things. And with each installment, unexpected complications and circumstances take us into terrain deeper and richer than seemed possible. It’s as if Martha Wells is only getting started. More of this, please. That governor module won’t hack itself.

David Dark teaches at Belmont University and is the author of We Become What We Normalize. You can follow him on Twitter @daviddark where he gives voice to his joys and fears and anxieties which are also his politics.