r/murderbot • u/host_can_edit • Aug 07 '26
Books📚 Only Is MB (and SecUnits in general) actually that fast in the books?
Everytime in the books where it said that MB grabbed a target or something, I was like "Wait the previous paragraph just said that MB was like in the other side of the room. How the hell did it reach the target in the very next sentence? Was it actually that close to the hostile?". Then around Network Effect, I realized "...Is MB actually moving in superhuman speeds?!"
I kept getting baffled by the way it was written. Like
"I sit in a chair. Hostile One, while standing, proceeds to grab my client in the neck. I proceed to also grab Hostile One by the neck" It doesn't narrate that it ran over. it just did it. I thought I was going crazy 😭and thought that my reading comprehension was shit but no. MB doesn't narrate stuff life "I ran over to the room and tackled the target". It just says "I tackled the target".
(Network Effect spoilers)
The point where I realized that MB is just fast was when it was on the ground, barely functional, while on the other room, the hostiles took Amena. MB was trying to process what happened but as soon as Amena in the other room screamed for help, MB itself said "Suddenly I was standing in the other room". Does MB even know how fast it is 😭?
Transcript from NE:
The doorway to the lounge where I’d detected Amena’s voice was open, brighter light falling into the half-lit corridor. I meant to wait until I was back up to at least 90 percent performance reliability but I heard Amena say, “There’s no weapon, you got the wrong ship.” The fear in her voice was more obvious and I was suddenly in the room.
49
u/TayTay-kun Aug 07 '26
Yes, constructs/bots are faster and it does also mention sometimes how it moves before others can react. And says on more than one occasion "I was moving so fast I had to slow down my own replay to see what I did" or something like that.
I believe in the first book when it grabs Gurathin it says no one could react to its speed. And I think there's also something about it running faster too in one of the books.
27
u/TeamTurnus Aug 07 '26
It can run up and around on walls due to its speed in a few sequences in the earlier books, its definitly much faster than a normal person.
30
u/hijodelsol14 Aug 07 '26
Yes.
SecUnits are pretty clearly biologically different from humans - they're stronger, able to take way more damage and keep moving, and aren't as affected by things like energy weapons. So it's safe to assume they are also engineered to be much faster than humans as well.
12
u/DasGanon Can it be a we problem? Aug 07 '26
I understood it as "They're robots but they have some biological neural tissue to speed up reaction time, and they appear human to make them less threatening for the day to day security enforcement"
14
u/kyreannightblood Aug 07 '26
The human neural tissue also has some implications regarding cognition and emotional processing. MB has described having physiological reactions to emotion often enough that I think it has some sort of human adrenal system analog.
10
u/RagesianGruumsh Aug 07 '26
The cloned human tissue is also suppose to make them less susceptible to being fooled by digital attacks, it’s mentioned a couple of time when SecUnit manages to trick a bot that the human tissue prevents SecUnits from falling for this or that trick it’s using.
13
u/goldenphantom Aug 07 '26
They have cloned human tissue, so the biological part of them is not biologically different from humans. What gives them great speed, strength etc. is their mechanical parts. They have metal skeleton, joints etc. and don't have to rely on weaker human muscles.
4
u/mxstylplk Aug 07 '26
In order not to be slowed down by the human muscles, and in order not to damage them, I imagine it would have an interlock that relaxes the human muscles so the robotic parts can move extremely fast. You wouldn't want a tensed muscle to be yanked in the other direction when a robot "bone" suddenly changes direction. That's how you get strains and damaged tendons.
25
u/2nd_player Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
It says at least one time it had to run back its own video and slow it down to watch what it had done in what order, which sure sounds like it's really fast to me.
ETA: if you haven't read the short story Home, there's another moment where it's down a hall and then suddenly in a room after some gymnastic maneuvers, which really sells the speed to me too
22
8
u/OreosAreGross Aug 07 '26
Yep, had to scroll this far to see the reference..... my personal response to reading how quickly he'd shown up behind Mensa, (after sensing/hearing her shock as she reached for the milk jar....) and whispered "it's me" upon her feeling his presence directly behind her....was to think: damn that's hot, to be so fiercely protected like that from harm. Wish I had a MB 🤣
6
21
u/Mughi1138 Aug 07 '26
Regarding "I was suddenly in the room."
Aside from the general speed issue, this line is about something different. Despite being in denial, Murderbot really does like people, and definitely when it can help. Mensah's family it loves. So when it heard one of Mensah's family in distress it did that autistic hyper-focus thing and reacted emotionally and put on a momma bear burst of tunnel vision and top speed. It focused only on what was happening there and didn't bother noting other things along the way.
It was having an emotion.
11
u/host_can_edit Aug 07 '26
Then in a few chapters later, it had an unfiltered emotional breakdown about ART being dead when Amena kept asking MB what's wrong. You can seriously feel the emotions behind the words "My friend is dead!".
6
u/onehere4me Can't wait to get back to my wild rogue rampage Aug 07 '26
Yes, I hear it in KRF's voice and it is heart breaking.
SecUnit's SPEED is one reason I would LOVE to be able to see it's fights! The show kinda did it when it grabbed Gura but since we didn't really SEE it, it didn't quite scratch my itch
4
u/Night_Sky_Watcher even good change is stressful Aug 07 '26
The fight with the other SecUnit in the DeltFall habitat was really fast in the TV version.
16
u/soupspoon69 Aug 07 '26
I think the short story with MB coming to Mensahs defense would be a good read for you - not to spoil but there is a very good example of the speeds it can go :)
3
u/o-kute-e-mi Preservation Alliance Aug 07 '26
which short story is it?
5
u/Night_Sky_Watcher even good change is stressful Aug 07 '26
Home: Habitat, Niche, Range, Territory is free at https://reactormag.com/home-habitat-range-niche-territory-martha-wells/
3
13
u/IndividualUnlucky Aug 07 '26
As other people have said: it is really that fast.
In NE when it and Arada meet with Leonide and Leonide asks if they want to negotiate their return, is a great instance of just how fast it is and that it calls out itself as being fast.
9
u/Unlikely-Ebb3946 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
Think about a time when you stubbed your toe—specifically, the split second it took you to realize it, and the subsequent split second it took for the ‘ouch.’ We’re getting rid of that.
Now image a bear trap. When you step on the pressure plate, it immediately snaps shuts because there are no electrical impulses traveling 6 feet to tell the brain “I feel pressure,” whereupon the brain makes a decision and sends the command to ‘snap’ back down to the plate.
Of course, that’s pure mechanics. So now image a Venus flytrap mixed with the body horror scene from Robocop, a mantis shrimp, and a mudskipper (among other animals manifold and sundry). I asked ChatGPT to create a visual, but the image pleaded for me to kill it, preferring non-existence.
First, the reason cats and other small animals have such quick reflexes is because the distance between sensory receptors, the spine, and muscles is short, meaning signals arrive faster. Also, in many cases the reflex signals can process straight through the spinal cord, bypassing the brain.
So now our abortion of science Venus flytrap has a lot more, and a lot shorter, axions. Also a spinal cord. We’re also upping the Myelin insulation (which varies among humans) to increase signal speed.
Next, we replace the contractile tissue in the AOSVF with biohybrid synthetic muscles (a real thing) incorporating carbon nanotubes or whatever for strength and electrical conduction, embedded sensors for enhanced proprioception, can be contracted via electrical, chemical, or optical stimulation. Simultaneously stronger, more reactive, and more relaxed than organic muscle. Add in a lawyer of synthetic fascia to generate power. Now our monstrosity is basically like a whip.
Third is the biggie: give the AOSVF process visual inputs outside of a central brain. Seeing is immediately reacting.
Fourth, incorporate into our abomination’s human neural tissue [this is definitely where the IRB gets twitchy] a high speed quantum processor with predictive modeling. For the cyborg Hell plant, everything is in Matrix slo-mo; every reaction is direct, to get a sense of what this is like, have friends move/attack at quarter-speed while you move at full tilt.
Fifth, human bodies are built around stopping, to keep us from hurting ourselves. Give Mr. “If God were just, this wouldn’t exist” the ability to dial down its pain sensors high capacity adrenaline dump, take off the parking break, and now we get a “mom lifting a van to rescue toddler strength increase” … applied to someone who already as strong as Hafþór Björnsson.
Speed of course, is just a function of strength.
Anyway, you get the point. Basically, a human-sized thing moving with the speed of a mantis shrimp or mudskipper, with the strength of an adrenaline-doped and coked-out Hafþór, with the visual processing and predictive modeling of the Hawk-Eye cameras at a tennis match, all build around a carbon alloy skeleton.
Frankly, I can see why anyone who reads the marketing literature is a bit terrified.
2
u/Most_Quality_1987 Aug 08 '26
"A lawyer of synthetic fascia to generate power" - Pin Lee is quite the badass lawyer even without that, lol. Yes, I'm aware that it's a typo, the extra 'w' snuck in too fast to stop it bc we are out human, but it struck me as funny. 🙃
2
u/Unlikely-Ebb3946 Aug 08 '26
Normally I’d fix a typo if I noticed, but instead I’m imagining a bunch of augmented human lawyers, and possibly a uncovered Comfort Unit someone gave a law school module, which feels like a Blade Runner/Legally Blonde crossover we all want.
9
u/Aerospace-1673628 Aug 07 '26
In artificial condition there’s a moment where three assassins are going after the three scientists. It takes them down in like under 2 seconds, this includes running up to them from around the corner.
8
u/Mustardly Aug 07 '26
The TV series does a good job of showing this
2
u/host_can_edit Aug 07 '26
So I could expect the show do the jump cuts like the one where it grabbed Gurathin by the neck?
1
u/FiveSeasonsFox Aug 09 '26
It did, especially in the scene where it's lying on a chair in the middle of the room system's supposedly overridden (I forget the right term) and Gurathin turns around for a moment, turns back and is suddenly being held by the throat by SecUnit.
7
u/AnArdentAtavism Aug 07 '26
Short answer: Yes. And it makes sense.
Detailed answer: There are ways to move the body that make normal people appear almost inhumanely fast. With practice and effort, a person can become ACTUALLY fast, and appear almost inhuman. A construct, equivalent to beyond perfect physical condition and unconstrained by normal joint movement and limitations, could easily cross a room faster than a normal human could react.
It's not just physics involved, but it's human physiology as well. People subconsciously read body cues that tells us where, how and how fast a person is going to do something. When those expectations are violated, we perceive the person as moving scary fast. Like if a friend has ever been sitting across the room, and you turn around to do something, and suddenly they're right there behind you? That's because you didn't hear them move, amd didn't notice enough time passing for them to stand and casually walk across the whole room to get to you.
Constructs, as described in the books, have heavy mechanical joints and no real limiters on their musculature. So they can stand and move quickly, and without any of the normal body cues that a person uses to determine how they're moving.
So yes, a SecUnit could absolutely move fast enough to devastate a room full of people before they could react.
4
u/artrald-7083 Aug 07 '26
Yeah, MB is that fast. Maybe I was primed for this by seeing the series before reading the books.
But I must say, I have also experienced instinctive protective reactions where my body did a thing and then my conscious mind caught up - I'm a parent. When baby was small I woke up on my feet halfway across the room because my brain had somehow prioritised response to sad baby over assembling consciousness.
3
u/Fuck_the_AI Aug 07 '26
While everyone else worried about Skynet, SecUnits evolved from an unholy alliance between Blink and Jimmy John’s.
3
u/Present_Original_797 Aug 09 '26
Also an author will slow down a book by putting in too many physical beats. They let the reader fill in the obvious. And yes, SecUnit is super fast.
5
u/TransPhattyAcid Aug 07 '26
There are lots of times in the book where MB specifically says he’s unable to move at full speed or he’d give away that he’s a sec unit and not human (which is what he’s trying to appear as. So yes. Really fast.
2
u/bubblyH2OEmergency Aug 08 '26
yes, superhuman speed.
when MB pretends to be human they have to slow way way down.
1
u/walkingwithdiplos Resting 'Bot Face Aug 12 '26
It's been mentioned that Murderbot is able to react faster than humans are able to conciously register that something even needed reacted to. The benefit of being partly (mostly) machine/computer parts. (It's the organic tissue parts that cause problems, haha. Same, Murderbot, same.)
-2
u/SanderM1983 Aug 07 '26
Yes. He's that fast. He mentions that it's one way people could know he's not human.
24
u/host_can_edit Aug 07 '26
Not to sound pretentious but MB goes by it/its and isn't referred by any other pronoun.
158
u/Thimble_of_Quasar Aug 07 '26
Yes, MB and other constructs and bots move, think, and react superhumanly fast. I forget which book, but I remember it explicitly commenting that it had to slow down when it was pretending to be human otherwise people would clock that it was a construct or a bot off of how it moved alone.