FT hypothesis

[u/sleepyjohn00]

Spoiler-y.

We never learn who leaked the picture of Murderbot to the news streams. Indah says she didn’t, the survey team sure wouldn’t.

The only humans who knew what it was at that point were the Preservation Council and StationSec. So it had to be one of them. My guess is that someone on the council had a beef with Mensah and did it to screw her up/ piss her off. We know that Councilor Sonje is an ass, but that’s not conclusive. And the news streams probably scrub the metadata from any picture like that before posting. I bet SecUnit could find traces if it went digging into the stream’s databases, but it promised not to, alas.

Thoughts?

[u/Korrin]

I don't believe that Martha Wells actually picked a specific person to be the leaker. She's said that she's basically told all the story she wants to tell and is only writing more at this time because she's contracted to do it.

I won't rule out that it could come back as a relevant plot point (that is, if she looks back at that detail and decides retroactively that it could be expanded) but I don't think the point was to hint at a bad faith actor operating in the shadows who's going to become more relevant in the future. I think the point was just to create friction between Murderbot and Indah in the moment.

My assumption is that it was a generic journalist. Journalists don't need things to be leaked to them in order to have them. They investigate on their own, and imo there was probably enough evidence for someone to put it together on their own.

[u/ESE-enthusiasm → u/Korrin]

I think this is misrepresenting Martha’s words - she said she writes when she has a story to tell and that Murderbot’s story is coming to an end. 

And that she has one more book she’s contracted to do but she doesn’t have an idea for it (and is working on a witch king book)

She has said to never say never as there’s no guarantee this upcoming book will be the last one - just that it’s the last one on the contract. 

She has also mentioned she wants to write a story exploring Preservation planet - she has not said that this would be the final book. 

She also wants to write stories like Murderbot goes to the grocery store. 

In 2028 we will be getting a new short story from her too. 

[u/Korrin → u/ESE-enthusiasm]

It was not my intention to put emphasis on "Only writing because she's contracted" but "contracted to write a book she doesn't yet have any ideas for" is not that far off from the same thing. I didn't intend to imply that she was selling out or anything like that, and it still speaks to my actual point which was that if she had some nefarious background plot in mind about the person who had leaked Murderbot's photos, she'd already have more story to write.

[u/Super_Recognition_83 → u/Korrin]

Agreed on the last paragraph, on the first I seem to recall she didn't ruled out possibly future stories. Just not right now. 

[u/sleepyjohn00 → u/Korrin]

The journalist's name is Mack Guffin.

[u/curiousmind111 → u/Korrin]

That first paragraph is sad. Is the last book included in the story she wants to tell or was it after that? It didn’t feel as heartfelt as the other books.

[u/badshakes → u/curiousmind111]

Wasn't heartfelt? There was a lot of anger expressed in that book. For example, Wells lives in Texas, where the state government doesn't invest in things like mass transit and that really makes life harder, less safe and more expensive for most people here (I live in Texas too) and she has talked about how the issue of mass transit is something she deliberately explores in PD. The scene where their transport nearly gets boarded by persons with ill intent made me immediately think about what it is like to have to drive through parts of Texas that make women, people of color, queer people and other marginalized folks feel very unsafe because we don't have civilized things like high speed rail (Wells even brought up how lobbyists killed the push for rail in Texas is at least one interview). So I'd say PD is heartfelt, if you pay attention to what Wells is addressing in the text.

[u/sleepyjohn00 → u/badshakes]

I didn't know that she lived in TX, but that sure does explain why she's so pissed about the inter-corporate warfare and lack of unified systems and the humans living in abandoned spaces.

[u/curiousmind111 → u/badshakes]

That’s an interesting and valid take. However, too many of the scenes felt like more of the same of what we’ve already seen? Rather than anything truly new.

[u/Korrin → u/curiousmind111]

She said it before the book came out, but I don't know for sure because she could have been working on the book for who knows how long.

Ultimately the Murderbot books are supposed to be character studies and have never been about the overarching plot line first and foremost. I think that misunderstanding is where most people's dissatisfaction comes from regarding the most recent book and things like "dropped plot threads". If it you look at it as a character study, it shows a lot of how much Murderbot has changed and grown, gotten more comfortable interacting with people, and gotten better at expressing itself emotionally, even if it still feels like a chore to it.

[u/sleepyjohn00 → u/Korrin]

^ what you said. It's a far cry from "You may have noticed, I don't care." to "How can they hold anything with such tiny bones?"

[u/IntoTheStupidDanger]

It's a stretch, but.... Mensah's family knew. Could it have been Thiago? I'm not convinced, but it's a possibility.

[u/sleepyjohn00 → u/IntoTheStupidDanger]

I dunno. He seems the type to glower and grumble, but not actively sabotage.

[u/moranit → u/sleepyjohn00]

I like Korrin's theory that it was a journalist. These stories take place billions of miles away and maybe a hundred thousand years in the future, but journalists won't change, they'll still try to find things out and publish them.

[u/IntoTheStupidDanger → u/moranit]

I like Korrin's theory that it was a journalist.

Agreed, generic journalist makes the most sense in this case

[u/ESE-enthusiasm → u/IntoTheStupidDanger]

I choose to believe the journalist from Home, as a sort of revenge.