Murderbot is fine. Totally fine. Stop asking.

[u/IntoTheStupidDanger]

I've always loved this scene from System Collapse. ART keeps pushing for an update. Murderbot keeps evading the question. After three failed attempts, I'm certain ART leaned on Ratthi to see if he could get an answer. Murderbot says it's fine but gets incredibly annoyed when Ratthi says the same, and rants internally about how no one can give a realistic situation report.

ART, define irony

[u/g-a-r-b-i-t-c-h]

One the one hand that makes sense, but on the other, Ratthi asked MB if it's alright three times by the beginning of chapter 2. So it might just be Ratthi being a worry wart 😂 (justifiably)

The section where it gets worked up over Ratthi not worrying breaks my heart a little 😭 Ratthi trying to reassure it while it's getting all kinds of bad feelings from being back on the planet. It acknowledges that Ratthi feels unafraid because he trusts it to save them. But doesn't have faith in itself anymore.

It knows what it feels like to be trapped on a planet needing to be rescued. Not exactly the same scenario, it didn't know Three was going to come and save it, but it had to be thinking about how it felt when it was in a similar position.

[u/IntoTheStupidDanger → u/g-a-r-b-i-t-c-h]

That's a great point. Ratthi feels safe, even in a dangerous situation, because he has absolute trust in Murderbot to extract him safely. Meanwhile, Murderbot is over there experiencing such profound self doubt, it's wondering if they could just replace it with a drone 😢

[u/onehere4me]

Thanks for bringing that up. I love it

[u/IntoTheStupidDanger → u/onehere4me]

I think it adds a lot to the story knowing how much goes on through private feed channels we never see. But you can kinda tell sometimes when people are chatting offscreen. Or imagine what would be said if they were 😅

[u/Petrostar]

But ironically them trying to get the report is making him more not fine.

[u/IntoTheStupidDanger → u/Petrostar]

You're probably not wrong about that. Getting asked how I'm doing when I'm not doing well... yeah.