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Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory(1)

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In which we see another side of things.

Initially released as a preorder bonus for Network Effect, and later published for free on the Tor.com website, this story is set just after Exit Strategy.

In the third person present,(2) Ayda Mensah is talking to Ephraim, another planetary councilor who was previously planetary leader and should know better than the conversation they're having. It doesn't help that they're in an office the same size as the room she was held captive in on TranRollinHyfa, but the message pinging in her feed helps some.

Ephraim is asking if something is a good idea, and Mensah lies and says if she'd known all this would happen, she'd have chosen a different planet to survey and invest in. She wouldn't, of course, because then Murderbot would still be property, and Mensah would likely be dead somewhere.(3)

Finally, Ephraim gets around to saying some of what he really wants to say, but instead of "killing machine", he calls MB a "product of corporate surveillance capitalism and authoritarian enforcement".

This, Mensah can work with. She's been opening the messages from said killing machine in her feed, an escalating sequence of requests for absurd armaments. She tells it she doesn't even know what the last one is. To Ephraim, Mensah says MB has saved her life and the lives of her team multiple times. To herself, she thinks how MB isn't supposed to have access to the systems or requisition forms to issue these requests at all, but she knows it's just "refusing to pretend to be anything other than it is" which is the only way forward, after all.(4)

If she’s honest with herself, which she hasn’t been, not since arriving back home, she would admit that being in this room has put her in a cold sweat. It helps that Ephraim’s here, but she would have to get up and walk out if not for those message packets.

Mensah can count on Ephraim not to argue that MB isn't a person, and thus not to argue that it's not qualified as a refugee. Everyone in Preservation is a descendant of refugees, and even the station is built on the ship that saved their grandparents' lives for no reason except that it could.

Ephraim does, however, ask if Mensah can separate MB as a person from the purpose for which it was created. Mensah can't deny that MB is potentially dangerous, but there's no evidence it would see that potential realized. And she half-admits to herself, sideways, that her head is still on TRH, and every ping from MB reminds her of the moment when she first got a ping from MB during the rescue. That's why the pings help so much.(5) So, to Ephraim, she says the person already separated itself.

They talk for another twenty minutes, but come to no conclusion except that they'll need to have this conversation several more times with the rest of the council. As Mensah makes to leave, she responds to MB's latest request by accusing it of making this gunship specsheet up.

Mensah offers a paragraph of her thoughts on the Corporation Rim and their relationship to slavery, and how MB proves that constructs are very much aware of their situations, no matter what humans tell themselves to sleep at night.

She meets Bharadwaj in her office lounge, and they discuss the potential scope of influence of the documentary. The Corporation Rim propaganda about SecUnits was powerful enough to even convince Preservation they weren't people. It'll be years, minimum, before they can really make the difference that's needed more widely. Mensah thinks of the first incident with Volescu and how she had been thinking of MB as an object, but knew immediately that nothing without sentience could have talked Volescu through that climb.(6)

Bharadwaj says they can't ignore the bit where SecUnits have capacity to be dangerous, as much or more than humans, or their argument will be twisted to absurdity. Mensah acknowledges that, thinking how SecUnits have their arm energy weapons, and can calculate how to survive a jump off a moving vehicle, and hack entire stations. Only, it took humans to engineer that capacity, and humans are the ones who hire or build people to do all that dirty work for them. She makes a note of this in their working document, to potentially build a theme around.

Mensah's feed pings with another request from MB. Aloud, she remarks how it's listening to them. Privately, she thinks how hard it must be to respect other people's privacy when you've had none of your own without a struggle.

Hard not to be paranoid when you remember all the times your paranoia was justified.(7)

Mensah thinks about what it's like, to be treated as a thing, and having no safety, and how her time as a hostage was in no way comparable to what MB went through. She even thinks Murderbot's private name, though corrects herself to SecUnit, since she wasn't ever really given its permission to use the other.(8) She reminds herself that these comparisons aren't helpful, and that fear is fear.(9)

Bharadwaj comments about MB's latest request, and Mensah looks at it, and sends back that she believes it's real but spiky backpacks seem impractical.

Later, in the suite, the team gets down to the business of finishing their survey reports, with MB sitting in a chair in the corner. As they sort through documents, MB asks if Mensah didn't receive "the Retrieved Client Protocol". Mensah says no, she didn't, and thinks how she didn't want a corporate digging around in her feelings in the name of trauma treatment. She almost adds that she doesn't need it, but, that would be a dead giveaway that she does, and why lie to the only people who know?

MB asks if trauma treatment is free here, and Arada naively asks if it's not free in the Corp Rim. Pin-Lee gets grumpy about the company letting Mensah getting abducted then wanting her to pay for treatment, and MB's face makes "a brief, eloquent ironic twist" that Mensah interprets to mean the treatment definitely isn't free for corporate clients. In response, she tells it that there's no RCP here. Overse clarifies that there is, it's just not called that. Bharadwaj says Volescu's been attending the trauma unit at a certain medical station on planet, and even station medical has some therapeutic treatment, though it's not as intensive.

Mensah, uncomfortable, pours herself another cup of tea as she says she "might have time later" for it. When she looks up, MB is looking straight at her. Mensah flushes, knowing she's been caught in her lie, but Gurathin saves her by asking if there's more sweetener syrup. Mensah offers to get more, to stretch her legs, and avoid an awkward confrontation.

Having spent so much time recently in the Corp Rim, Mensah half-marvels at how everything, the food supplies in the hotel pantry, even the bathrooms and showers, all of it is free on the station and the planet, even to visitors.(10)

As she closes the door to the pantry, she's startled by a stranger standing nearby. He asks if she's Dr. Mensah. She gasps, steps back, and bumps into MB. He says he's just a journalist. MB tells the man station security is seconds out, and starts counting backwards. He flees, and everyone else comes out of the room to see where MB went. Ratthi says it jumped right over him on its way to help. Mensah tells them to go back in, she's fine and she'll talk to security. They go, more because they're used to taking her direct orders as their mission lead than because she's a planetary leader.

Security notify Mensah in her feed that they've apprehended the journalist, and will vet his story before they decide what to do with him, but they'll be in for a statement shortly. Mensah knows she has to get herself together before then, and MB's looming presence, radiating heat as comfort, stands out to her. It offers to let her hug it. Mensah says she knows it doesn't enjoy that, but it says it's not terrible, with an ironic tone.

But, Mensah doesn't want to lean on someone who doesn't want to be leaned on. She doesn't want to rely on it for emotional stability when it has its whole life to figure out. She can only give it space and time… or, perhaps a little something.

She asks if any of its requests were serious, and it says it would like some little intel drones. Mensah remembers how useful they were on the survey, and says she'll try. MB asks if that's a bribe, and Mensah says that depends on whether it works.(11) MB admits it's never been bribed before, falls silent for a moment, then suggests Mensah get the trauma treatment the others mentioned.

Mensah, aware that her hesitation is founded in exactly the problem the treatment would solve, lies and says she'll try to do it. MB snorts skeptically, and she knows it's not buying. But, it doesn't say anything, just slips away as security reach the outer lobby.(12)

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(1) How do you think the title relates to the content of the story, now, after presumably having read it? The sub-parts of the title are all ways of defining the main one: your home might be described in terms of all four of those things. We usually see them used to describe animal behaviour, though: animals live in habitats, they live in typically defined ranges, they occupy niches in their territories. How does this affect how you think of the story told within? (For me, I take what I think is probably a very simplistic view of it, and interpret the story as being an examination of Mensah trying to return home but finding that she doesn't fit into her old space the way she once did, she has changed, and that changes all the associated factors even though they aren't addressed much directly in this story.) (2) The choice of POV and tense is so interesting here, don't you think? Murderbot's books have been documenting its past. This is narrated as-it-happens, with a certain tension that MB's books don't invoke. Which is extra curious, because nothing particularly tense happens here, action-wise. Do you think the tense choice is intended to make up for that and amplify the interpersonal drama, or for does it have some other purpose? (3) Would she? If she'd been surveying a planet that didn't have alien remnants, she might not have pissed off a corp like GrayCris, might not have ended up held hostage like that, might not have had attempts on her life. I mean, she might still have, eventually, but not necessarily. (4) I believe this is mostly in reference to the plan to use the documentary as anti-Corporate propaganda to initiate operation: free and rehabilitate the constructs. At least, that's what I get from the propaganda discussion later on.

(5) God, my heart, their friendship. We've only ever seen it from MB's side. It has a good idea of how Mensah feels around it, but it's something else to see the total reciprocation inside her head. (6) A beautiful callback to the first book. MB didn't even realize that it had done this, it had so much else going on in that moment, and yet it showed such kindness even as its MedSystem told it not to bother. Preservation might have been more open to recognizing that for what it was, making it rather fortunate for all involved that they did take notice, but it's an interesting hint that MB was Being A Person for a lot longer than it wanted to admit. (7) Which, of course, goes for both of them. So many of her comments throughout this are about both herself and MB. It's rather lucky she's had such a solid rock to lean on, because if she were refusing trauma treatment and didn't have MB around… I don't think she'd be as functional as she is. (8) I frequently see folks in the Tumblr tags posting about how it feels weird to call it "Murderbot" when we, personally, haven't been given permission to use that name. And I totally get that! It's important to respect what people ask to be named in the real world, and MB, as a fictional character, isn't really in a place to give us that permission as readers. However, I fall on team "use Murderbot as readers" for three reasons: that's the name of the series which gives us implicit permission to use it by the author, MB isn't a real person to tell me not to call it by the series that's named for it or pick another name we can use instead, and SecUnits are referred to often enough that it would be confusing at best to try to do this project without naming MB somewhat uniquely. If MB were real and didn't die of embarrassment at having its private name the only one it's known by, I would absolutely respect its wishes.

(9) The phrasing here is so vague, I genuinely can't tell if we should interpret that Mensah is forgiving herself for making that empathetic connection, or if she's suggesting she should stop making the comparison because it's potentially harmful to MB. I love that ambiguity, myself. You can learn a lot about yourself by what you project into it. (10) I feel like part of this is for the reader's benefit, but I can definitely see her realizing not to take it for granted. Particularly on the heels of the conversation about corporate trauma treatment protocol not being free, some part of her recognizes how lucky, how privileged she is, in her way, to have access to whatever she needs, with no questions asked. We know she takes the treatment later, as part of her deal with MB when it goes on Arada's survey mission. Perhaps we get this short story as a sort of… insight? into her first steps from where she was in Exit Strategy to where we saw her in Network Effect. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. (11) I dunno about you, but I can definitely see how her family would interpret this as some sort of flirting. Like, we know there's nothing romantic or sexual about it. MB is an aroace icon. But, the intimacy of the banter, you know? So often people don't have relationships like that outside the romantic and sexual ones, so people who don't think that's possible or reasonable project their assumption that intimacy can ONLY be romantic-sexual onto perfectly platonic interaction. (I will not start my rant about sexualizing the behaviour of children, but know that it exists and is absolutely related to how people project their defaults onto blank slates.) (12) So, how do you think MB feels about all this? It feels safe enough to leave her alone as security approaches, but what's it thinking about Mensah's state of being? How do we get from this interaction, to her taking the treatment in the bargaining conditions?

Your post about sci-fi slavery came across my dash - it seems like you've read the whole Murderbot series, and "regular" slavery is definitely a thing that comes up, in the form of peoples' lifelong forced indentured servitude to corporations on colonies or mining facilities. Just seemed like a odd bone to pick, when it's there pretty clearly (in Artificial Condition, Network Effect, and System Collapse at least).

Referencing this post probably. Or this related one.

Yes, I am aware there's other forms of slavery in this series, and no it's not an odd bone to pick, because the only other slavery that exists in the series is always in the background and always off-screen and never the main focus of any story.

It's not taken seriously, just like the main form of slavery isn't either.

The plot of System Collapse, no pun intended, collapses in on itself as soon as you think about it for more than five seconds, because the entire premise is that the people need to agree to be enslaved in the first place. Which isn't how slavery works.

Whether or not "regular" slavery is also a thing in the setting (only ever in the background!) does not fix the fact that the major form of slavery in the setting is the fake kind that doesn't actually exist and doesn't understand how actual oppression works, and plays into slavery apologism.

And Martha Wells can't even take the fake version of slavery she's invented seriously and treat it with the gravity that it's due, why should the fact that there's so-called 'regular' (not even) slavery in the setting only in the background fix the main problems I pointed out with my original post?

Again. Cannot stress it enough. The plot of System Collapse is that people have to agree to be enslaved before they can be enslaved and all they have to do is say no and boom. Suddenly you can't enslave them.

That is not how slavery or oppression work at all. That's just a whole new brand of victim blaming and slavery apologism to come out of this series. And it's not the first. Murderbot literally argues all the time that other constructs should remain enslaved because otherwise they'd just murder everyone. That's not even fantasy slavery apologism, that's just straight up antiblack slavery apologism that was and still is used to defend real life slavery.

I recommend you try rereading the series. Because we have seven whole books out now and it shouldn't have taken more than two for Murderbot to become actually anti-slavery but even in book 7 we can fucking even have that yet. The only slaves in this series whose lives matter are random humans who don't even get to be actual characters with personalities or matter in any way besides hurting Murderbot's feelings, and Murderbot itself. ART tears an enslaved construct to fucking peices while they're still alive and it's treated as perfectly reasonable and Badass™ instead of the most horrific fucking torture and cruelty.

I don't know how to tell you or anyone else reading this that thinks this series is good at handling slavery, but murdering slaves, and literally torturing them to death by literally chopping them into fucking peices while they're alive is in fact incredibly fucking evil and not actually anti-slavery or pro-liberation.

ART could have literally just fucking knocked that person unconcious or, as @walks-the-ages pointed out: get this: Knocked them unconscious and disabled thier fucking governermodule. ART is the most advanced fucking bot in the damn series, it can do anything it wants. Am I supposed to believe it can't hack governer modules? Am I supposed to pretend that it had no choice but to CHOP A LIVING PERSON INTO PEICES TO TORTURE THEM TO DEATH in "self-defence"?

If Murderbot had a story to tell about getting literally chopped to peices while it was still owned by the Company, it would be treated as horrific and traumatic and terrible.

But when one of the literal heroes of the story does that exact fucking gruesome thing to another enslaved person right there on the page, it's perfectly fine and cool and just shows how Badass™ ART is.

That's not fucking arguing that slavery is bad. That's arguing that slavery is bad when it happens to the protagonist.

If you're reading this post, go read the first post I linked too. Here it even is so you don't have to scroll back to the top.

Edit: you've also completely and utterly failed to address any of the things I brought up in that original post, and instead you're just trying to deflect by talking about the other slavery in the setting, even though that doesn't refute my original statements at all.

"It's okay for me to ship this slave with its owner because escaped slaves used to buy their families, and gay people used to adopt eachother before they could get married"

yeah that does not fucking work when one of these people is a slave and the other is literally fucking not. Mensah is human. She is from Preservation. She is not considered property. Murderbot on the other hand is literally a slave. It is property. It first belongs to the company, and then Mensah buys it. Without its permission or knowledge. The entire FUCKING point of the ENTIRE FIRST BOOK is that nothing that's happening is something Murderbot gets to choose for itself.

It doesn't get to fucking to choose to tell anyone that it hacked its governor module.

Its fucking name gets revealed without its consent.

And then when it's fucking unconscious and dying it wakes up to find out that it's been bought, has now changed fucking hands, and now it's got a new owner. And it's supposed to be happy about this.

This is literally THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT of the first book.

Murderbot and Mensah are not fucking equals. Murderbot is Mensah's fucking property, no matter where they go. In the Corporation Rim, or Preservation, it's the same damn thing: Murderbot is Mensah's property.

Murderbot would not be fucking allowed to exist in Preservation space at all if not for Mensah being its guardian and fighting tooth and fucking nail with Pin-Lee to get it the few rights it does have now.

The only reason Murderbot is allowed to do anything is because Mensah's its fucking owner, or as they call it in Preservation to make it sound nicer, which the books literally repeat over and over again so you can't fucking forget, she's its "guardian".

Which is literally just a nicer word for "owner". Literally. How many gods damned times do the books have to spell this out.

Murderbot is Mensah's fucking property. Mensah is Murderbot's fucking owner.

They are not fucking equals.

Even if Murderbot WERE NOT EXPLICITLY AROACE, TOUCH-REPULSED, ROMANCE-REPULSED, AND SEX-REPULSED, it still wouldn't be fucking okay to ship them, because Murderbot is not Mensah's fucking equal in the eyes of the law no matter where they go.

Corporation Rim? Congrats! No one's gonna pretend Murderbot's not her property. Preservation? Yeah, it's still literally her property, but we're gonna call her its "guardian' to make it sound nicer.

The only way those fucking arguments could apply to this relationship is if they were both fucking constructs, but one of them was better at passing as human than the other. Because it would literally be two fucking equals protecting eachother.

That is literally not what is fucking happening when you fucking ableist, amisic jackasses ship Murderbot with Mensah.

They are not equals. That is literally the whole fucking conflict of their relationship. They are not equals. They are fucking aware of this. Murderbot is excruciatingly aware of this. That is literally the whole point of the first book. Martha Wells does not fucking mince words or beat around the bush. This fucking shit is explicit. She practically beats you over the fucking head with the fact that Mensah is Murderbot's owner.

If you think it's okay to ship Murderbot with anyone, you're ableist and amisic. If you think it's okay to ship it with Mensah, its literal owner, you are a horrible fucking person who is PURPOSEFULLY ignoring the entire fucking purpose of this series and everything it stands for.

Fuck. You.