Just read Revenant Gun

[conuly]

Apparently, sometime in the past few years, robots watching TV became a thing? There's one in this book too! It's a fanvidder! Too cute. Cute is not a word I thought I'd use about anything in this trilogy, but there it is. (It's the only time.) At one point it replaces the incriminating dialog in a surveillance tape with something innocuous that probably wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny. In fact, it doesn't stand up to any scrutiny, because the dialog used was cribbed word-for-word from some egregious technobabble from the big bad's "least favorite" drama - and yeah, I don't know why he memorized that scene either if it's not his favorite show. Maybe he hatewatches it in between errands.

Comments

[redsixwing]

Hemiola <3

I was wondering about that, too. (Then again, I've been known to watch egregiously bad examples of my field in the media so I can spork them, so maybe he's petty enough to do that, too.)

[conuly]

He does have a lot of time to kill, in between people.

[redsixwing]

*teanose*

I'm trying not to let Kujen have a lot of brain space, but wow have Jedao and Cheris and Hemiola eaten a big chunk recently. I'll be over here attempting to commit comfort fic.

[conuly]

I even manage to feel a little bad for baby!Kujen. Of course, you have to ask what sort of utter idiot thinks that removing his ability to care about people is a good idea.

[redsixwing]

It seems like he went through some appalling stuff.

A face-space friend and I were discussing it, and "I feel bad about something bad! I should remove all my capacity to feel bad." just.

Does. Not. Compute.

edit: I thought about Murderbot some with Hemiola, too. I wasn't as fond of All Systems Red as I was of MoE, but I'd probably read Murderbot+Hemiola fic focusing on them chatting about some new drama.

[delight]

From my "I am a neuroscientist" perspective on this - sociopathy is something that brains have a capacity to develop at different levels and can form inr esponse to childhood trauma, whether or not people actually know it. Kujen's way too functional to be a typical case of ASPD, but good old Dr. James Fallon's story is a great example of how that kind of behavior and brain structure/patterning is a spectrum.

Thus he was already likely predisposed, in similar ways to Dr. Fallon irt: incredible intelligence, then add in a horrific early childhood and "I should remove all my capacity to feel bad" starts to make perfect sense to that brain.

[conuly]

Maybe he should've gotten a second opinion, though.

[delight]

Oh, definitely.

[redsixwing]

That is fascinating - thank you for the link!

I see some other sources in there too. Being not a neuroscientist, but enjoying background reading and trying to understand things, this is good stuff. :D

There's some interesting stuff in RG about alienation on various levels, and I feel like it's relevant here, but I am not succeeding at hanging words on that right now. /o\

[conuly]

A face-space friend and I were discussing it, and "I feel bad about something bad! I should remove all my capacity to feel bad." just.

Who would've guessed this would go horribly wrong.

I'd probably read Murderbot+Hemiola fic focusing on them chatting about some new drama.

Or sharing their faves with each other!

[redsixwing]

Who would've guessed this would go horribly wrong.

Heh. On the up side, I now have a shining example of "surgically removed own brakes."

Or sharing their faves with each other!

Ooooh yes! They can play back their favorite scenes for one another and chat about the ridiculousness of the characters. I bet Hemiola would not get shut down about its fanvids in front of Murderbot, either.

I am not the right person to write that one, but hopefully someone does.

[delight]

We have someone playing Kujen in a roleplay I run, and I'm pretty sure that the sympathy for the backstory is the only reason he can sleep.

[hamsterwoman]

I was delighted by the revelation that Kujen hatewatches this show enough to recognize dialogue from it. I guess one gets really bored after 900 years?

I loved Hemiola, and its fannishness worked for me possibly the best out of all the recent examples of fannish robots (Murderbot and the anime-watching one in "Fandom for Robots" whose name I don't remember). Murderbot totally needs to adopt it, though, and watch crappy soap operas together.

[conuly]

Is Sanctuary Moon a crappy soap? Maybe it's quite a good one.

[hamsterwoman]

Possibly! (It's possible 'Artificial Condition' sheds light on the objective quality of Sanctuary Moon; I haven't read it yet, but from the first novella, I couldn't tell one way or another.)

But I assume that, by Sturgeon's Law, they'd run out of good ones fairly soon and then have to watch crappy ones :)

[conuly]

It may be true that 90% of everything is crap, but they're living in the fuuuuuuuuuuuuture. There's a whole lot more everything to watch!

[greghousesgf]

Robots watching TV? MST3K has been around longer than a few years.

[conuly]

And can you think of other examples between then and now? I can't. (Plus, MST3K perforce is about existing movies. That's the point. In these books, they're about contemporary pop culture, which doesn't exist in our real world.)

[conuly]

Sorry, didn't get enough sleep, kinda in a pissy mood.

[elainegrey]

Ah! Murderbot watches TV, too! Which, indeed, i read because you recommended it.

Murderbot in that first novella reminded me of disengaged employees everywhere. I don't know if independent murderbot will be as interesting, and so haven't moved forward in that reading.

[conuly]

I liked the second one too, and have preordered the remaining two.