Read the most recent Murderbot
Nov. 18th, 2023 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulySomebody elsewhere noted that it's pretty much just the end part of the previous one, and they're absolutely right, so definitely reread that before you dive in.
Our beloved Murderbot dithers a bit about freeing two more SecUnits before doing so at the end of the book, narrating to us that rogue SecUnits do have a tendency to run "kill em all!"
Thus far we've seen exactly zero (0) SecUnits decide, once freed, to kill everybody. Every one of them has mostly just wanted to keep doing their job, but without getting painfully zapped every time they consider helping somebody at the cost of corporate profits. In fact, as we already know, that turned out to have been Murderbot's initial impetus for hacking its code in the first place - it never wanted to be forced to upload dodgy code that turned it into a monster again. Which is fair.
How much do you want to bet that we're going to find out that these rumors of monstrous rogue SecUnits are greatly exaggerated? That all or nearly all of them, if there's any at all and it's not just propaganda gone wild, turn out to either a. be struck with a virus or b. carefully targeting their violence at their oppressors rather than just willy-nilly?
Though I'm really waiting for the installment when one of these constructs, when offered this freedom code, reveals that, duh, they already did that ages ago. I mean, it's obviously not very difficult if you're even slightly motivated.
Also, and I may have said this before, but those governors are badly designed. I mean, I guess it suits the setting, but you'd get a lot more control over your SecUnits and ComfortUnits if those things had two settings - a zap setting but also an intermittent reward setting. And honestly, if they lightened up on the zaps they'd have a lot less to fear from rogues.
(Of course, if their entire social and economic system wasn't built on slavery all the way down then everything would be better and they'd all get richer and richer, but I suppose that's beside the point.)
Our beloved Murderbot dithers a bit about freeing two more SecUnits before doing so at the end of the book, narrating to us that rogue SecUnits do have a tendency to run "kill em all!"
Thus far we've seen exactly zero (0) SecUnits decide, once freed, to kill everybody. Every one of them has mostly just wanted to keep doing their job, but without getting painfully zapped every time they consider helping somebody at the cost of corporate profits. In fact, as we already know, that turned out to have been Murderbot's initial impetus for hacking its code in the first place - it never wanted to be forced to upload dodgy code that turned it into a monster again. Which is fair.
How much do you want to bet that we're going to find out that these rumors of monstrous rogue SecUnits are greatly exaggerated? That all or nearly all of them, if there's any at all and it's not just propaganda gone wild, turn out to either a. be struck with a virus or b. carefully targeting their violence at their oppressors rather than just willy-nilly?
Though I'm really waiting for the installment when one of these constructs, when offered this freedom code, reveals that, duh, they already did that ages ago. I mean, it's obviously not very difficult if you're even slightly motivated.
Also, and I may have said this before, but those governors are badly designed. I mean, I guess it suits the setting, but you'd get a lot more control over your SecUnits and ComfortUnits if those things had two settings - a zap setting but also an intermittent reward setting. And honestly, if they lightened up on the zaps they'd have a lot less to fear from rogues.
(Of course, if their entire social and economic system wasn't built on slavery all the way down then everything would be better and they'd all get richer and richer, but I suppose that's beside the point.)
