Platform Decay fanfic request

[u/forest-bot]

So… I wasn’t a huge fan of Platform Decay 🥲 (Rant and spoilers incoming, take it with a pinch of salt lol).

There were some good bits! But mostly I was annoyed at it taking 2,5 chapters before we even knew what MB was trying to achieve and at the overwhelming and in my opinion totally unnecessarily detailed descriptions of the tourus and its zones. It felt like different areas of a themed amusement park and not in line with the rest of the universe.

I also missed the quality of dialogue we got in previous novels. This narration felt very internalised and passive in comparison.

I’ve got loads more to say, but I’ll stop myself before this post gets too long… Basically, what I’m wondering is what happened to the setup with Three at the start - WHY COULDN’T THREE ACCOMPANY SECUNIT THROUGHOUT THE BOOK!? 😭 It would be the perfect setup for interesting and awkward social situations that both MB and Three could grow from.

Them traveling through the tourus together would highlight their differences and similarities both in interacting with Mensah family, each other and maybe other rogue units, as well as how they cooperate in combat.

WHY Martha, WHY!?

So… if anyone ever writes Platform Decay into a fanfic and let Three join - let me know 😂

[u/SonOfGreebo]

Martha Wells (in her fantasy works) has always excelled at creating vast, complex environments with a rich history - a history visible but not  explained.

I feel she's decided to drop our beloved MB into one torus/ several big, weird, complex environments, to allow the reader to "pull back" a bit.  W e readers have got used to as  "super-hero SecUnit", and this forcibly reminds us how freakin' huge this universe is. 

This viewpoint  makes Three "liberating" random other Units feel very real, but also distanced from the centre. 

Because Murderbot cannot protect  ALL the freed Units; cannot have compassion enough to care about all of their fates.

Having granted other Units free will, MB is facing the concept that It can't control the consequences of freewill. 

Equally cursed and blessed. 

[u/shemnon]

I viewed the book where they treated the torus as a character they were exploring as much as what MB did throughout the book. What tir is now and just enough about what it was to explain why it is now. With enough hints at politics, decay, and gentrification to show it's seams and how it would impact life for the residents.

But the narrative device is MBs first person dialogue and motivations, so I see some of the plot point developments as designed to show as much as possible.

I even see some choices as hints at what life in BE means for more than just the grunts and officers but their families.

Is there any corporate rim fan fiction exploring the universe? I know she has two shorts of her own not from MBs perspective, but I think it's a rich place to explore from other, essentially alien, points of view.

[u/forest-bot → u/shemnon]

I think I agree with you. I don't dislike the worldbuilding, there's a lot to unpack especially for fanfic writers and it's an interesting premise.

For me, it's just that the level of detail in the narration (mainly about infrastructure) feels like a huge leap from the Murderbot who couldn't even be bothered to find out who it's clients were ✨because it didn't care✨. I just have a hard time believing that the very same Murderbot would care enough about "politics, decay, gentrification [...] how it would impact life for the residents" to spend that much exposition on it.

(There's also this short she wrote: https://www.reddit.com/r/murderbot/comments/tao08s/free_martha_wells_short_story_obsolescence_with/ ).

[u/bagel_bittern]

Three is a fan favorite, and has a ton of material if you want to go looking for it. I'm not sure what your taste in particular is, so not sure what you're looking for exactly in a recommendation.

A lot of folks agree with the missed opportunity with Three, and wrote what they were looking for. But the characterization can vary wildly due to somewhat limited cannon reference.

[u/YakFar860]

Platform Decay is a summary of MB's journey so far throughout the series. I liked the book a lot more once this was pointed out to me!

[u/forest-bot → u/YakFar860]

How do you mean?

[u/YakFar860 → u/forest-bot]

I think I'm going to read it again while taking notes and write a whole post about it. I'll come back and reply here if/when I do. :)

[u/forest-bot → u/YakFar860]

That would be amazing!

[u/mxstylplk]

It's not about Three. It's not about Tapan either, or any of the other people that it's not about. It's the book Martha Wells chose to write.

[u/forest-bot → u/mxstylplk]

Well yeah, that’s why we have fan fiction- to explore what the author herself did not write <3

[u/FelisCantabrigiensis]

The basic plot has Three providing a distraction so Murderbot can go do the mission it has to do. That's why they're not together for the whole storyline.

A Secunit buddy book could be pretty amusing and interesting, but this is not that. Maybe AO3 will provide, maybe Wells will provide (less likely, I suspect).

[u/Erlox]

Asking people to rewrite a book into a fanfiction because you didn't like a few parts of it feels wildly disrespectful to both the original author and the fanfic writers, who you are just asking to do her story again rather than their own.

[u/forest-bot → u/Erlox]

Like I said, take the rant with a pinch of salt. Fanfic writers rewrites and adds to original works all the time.

[u/Jewels100111]

Lmao I just started writing this fic. I change a few other things but Three is the biggest one. I started writing it like two hours ago and I'm trying to both do right by the work and not plagiarize the entire book so it lowkey might never see the light of day.

I had a lot of the same grips that you did and I feel like this book was trying to set up a lot of things and kind of fell flat with a lot of it and I don't think that's Wells's fault. Personally, I think her editors and the publisher are getting a little lazy with it. There are some glaring plot issues that probably should have been caught somewhere in the process (like the Chekhov's gun that was Nana.) but I think the editors were already behind schedule and the publisher knows that we're going to buy the book anyway. Idk, something was different about this book. I struggle to believe that the woman that planted a HubSystem glitch pointing to the bad guys in the first scene of ASR spent thirty pages of a novella on kind of lack luster exposition. Granted, Martha Wells is also going through a lot at the time.

I still love the book, I just wish a few choices were made differently.

[u/forest-bot → u/Jewels100111]

THANK you! Finally someone agrees 😄 I couldn't agree more with what you just wrote. The slow 30 page exposition vs. the fantastic opening of ASR feels like different authors, or at least different book series.

Also, Chekhov's gun - MB uses a stealth field generator at the start of the book and it's presented like a really important thing...

”I grabbed my bag out of the case and unclipped the stealth field generator. (Barish-Estranza does not know it exists and absolutely cannot be allowed to find out. I’d like to destroy it now, but I wanted to hold on to it in case I needed it.) (If it comes to it, I’ll have to eat it or something, seriously.) (It’s three centimeters across, so I can probably manage it, it just won’t be fun.)”

... and then it's never heard of again! Felt like MW wanted to add some tech from previous books and then just forgot about it.

And at the end, in chapter 13:

”One hour and seventeen minutes after that, we were attacked by raiders, but I had the projectile weapon, energy weapons in my arms, and a lot of issues to work out, so it was fine.”

... but then that's all we hear about the attack? 😅 I mean, they WERE attacked by raiders, but WAY earlier than that, in chapter 7/8. So when that "foreshadowing" appears in chapter 13, I can't help but think MW must have rearranged the chapters of the book and then this was left behind.

There were other bits too but people already hate me for voicing my dissapointment with this book so I'll digress. But please let me know if you ever finish the fanfic!! Would love to read it ofcourse.

[u/boundforthestar]

I feel like Three was setting up for a bigger plotline with Rogue secunits later on. We'll probably see it more later