All Systems Red

“They don’t give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions.”

Throughout the text, Murderbot refers to its shoddy software and the fact that the company intentionally cuts corners on everything from its systems to hardware. The theme of education returns at the end of the novella when Murderbot gets the opportunity to pursue educational opportunities as a free agent, but it ultimately rejects those opportunities.

“So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous.”

Wells humorously changes the science fiction trope of the android that wants to be human with Murderbot’s characterization as a robot that finds its humanity and interaction with humans awkward and undesirable. Murderbot has a distorted self-concept as being monstrous due to its guilt about murdering a mining crew. As the narrative shows, the people around Murderbot are welcoming and have a positive attitude toward it. This forces Murderbot to confront its distorted identity.

“I had talked to Volescu all the way up the side of the crater. I had been mostly concerned with the hopper’s trajectory and Bharadwaj not bleeding out and what might come out of that crater for a second try; I hadn’t been listening to myself, basically. I had asked him if he had kids. It was boggling. Maybe I had been watching too much media. (He did have kids. He was in a four-way marriage and had seven, all back home with his partners.)”

Despite Murderbot’s assertion that it wants to avoid humans and that it is a heartless killing machine, it evinces caring traits throughout the novella. In this example, Murderbot’s experience watching dramas stands in for an “education module” on how to deal with crises. The passage also accomplishes worldbuilding as it reveals that polyamory is a common aspect of the society.

“I was recording all their conversations all the time, though I wasn’t monitoring anything I didn’t need to do a half-assed version of my job. […] No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

This passage echoes the present-day concern of social media companies mining personal data and smart devices automatically recording audio and video of their users. Wells takes the situation a step further in showing that everyone has become ambivalent about this fact, and that, unlike today’s devices, even Murderbot does not have the option of turning this feature off.

“Back in the safety of the ready room, I leaned my head against the plastic-coated wall. Now they knew their murderbot didn’t want to be around them any more than they wanted to be around it. I’d given a tiny piece of myself away. That can’t happen. I have too much to hide, and letting one piece go means the rest isn’t as protected.”

This passage follows the scene in which Mensah asks Murderbot if it wants to remain with the crew after they review the footage of the crater attack. Murderbot’s anxieties skyrocket, and because it is not wearing armor with an opaque helmet, its face gives away its emotional discomfort. Murderbot is very protective of its privacy because it does not want to reveal any humanlike vulnerabilities: It fears rejection if the crew finds out about its past.

“I don’t have any gender or sex-related parts (if a construct has those you’re a sexbot in a brothel, not a murderbot) so maybe that’s why I find sex scenes boring. Though I think that even if I did have sex-related parts I would find them boring.”

Wells accomplishes another aspect of character building in describing Murderbot’s agender or nongendered identity. Murderbot uses the pronoun “it,” expressing not only gender neutrality but the desire to be seen as inanimate. Rather than this being a conscious choice, the default pronoun for SecUnits is “it” because humans consider them machines rather than people. Murderbot’s note about its asexuality regardless of its parts is important because it shows that it is a part of Murderbot’s personality rather than being determined by its lack of sexual organs.

“They had talked it over and all agreed not to ‘push me any further than I wanted to go’ and they were all so nice and it was just excruciating. I was never taking off the helmet again.”

This passage shows the progression of Murderbot’s relationship with the crew. They have begun to understand that Murderbot has human traits. That they are trying to respect its boundaries is more painful to Murderbot than if they treated it as a machine with no feelings. Murderbot’s armor, particularly its helmet, symbolizes its desire to keep its feelings hidden. By the end of the novella, Murderbot realizes that it doesn’t need its armor and that its fear about revealing its vulnerability is unfounded.

“It was an odd spot. Quiet compared to the other places we’d surveyed, with not much bird-thing noise and no sign of animal movement. Maybe the rocky patches kept them away. I walked out a little way, past a couple of the lakes, almost expecting to see something under the surface. Dead bodies, maybe. I’d seen plenty of those (and caused plenty of those) on past contracts, but this one had been dead-body-lacking, so far. It made for a nice change.”

The story is told from Murderbot’s point of view. Passages like this one show that Murderbot is sensitive to its surroundings. This character trait allows Wells to accomplish worldbuilding and describe the environment in a way that does not feel forced and that also reveals Murderbot’s character.

“I don’t do automated package updates anymore, now that I don’t have to. When I felt like it, presumably sometime before it was time to leave the planet, I’d go through the update and apply the parts I wanted and delete the rest.”

With its hacked governor module, Murderbot has agency over the knowledge it internalizes, much like a human does. Wells makes it clear that aside from its faulty software, there is nothing special about Murderbot that differentiates it from other SecUnits. This implies that other SecUnits also can have feelings and agency.

“Gurathin wasn’t as talkative as the others, so I didn’t have much of a sense of his personality. He was the only augmented human in the group, so maybe he felt like an outsider, or something, even though the others clearly liked him.”

The only crew member who is antagonistic toward Murderbot is Gurathin. The text does not go into detail about augmented humans, but from the information it provides, they have the same status as fully organic humans. Gurathin’s tendency to separate himself from the others may come from the same anxiety about his difference that Murderbot has, and Wells lets the reader speculate about why Gurathin feels enmity toward Murderbot rather than thinking it is a kindred spirit.

“I thought it was likely that the only supplies we would need for DeltFall was the postmortem kind, but you may have noticed that when I do manage to care, I’m a pessimist.”

Murderbot attributes negative traits toward itself when its tendency to assume the worst about the DeltFall group comes from its experience with other missions. As with its repeated statements about only doing a “half-assed” job at its duties, its positive actions contradict its negative self-concept.

“I’m supposed to let the clients do and say whatever they want to me and with an intact governor module I wouldn’t have a choice.”

This passage shows that the governor module makes it impossible for most SecUnits to react to mistreatment and echoes the theme of slavery. Murderbot mentions that clients have SecUnits fight each other for their amusement. Knowing that the injuries Murderbot sustains in combat are painful emphasizes the unethical nature of the company’s practice.

“I would have preferred they be overcautious. I had had contracts before where the company’s equipment glitched this badly, but there was just something about this that made me think it was more. But all I had was the feeling.”

Without its governor module, Murderbot cannot rely on its governor module to make its decisions. Instead, it relies on its experience and feelings as a human would. Murderbot’s desire for caution also comes from its desire to protect its humans.

“I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out DeltFall. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.”

Murderbot repeatedly denies that it cares about its clients, but all its actions prove otherwise. Murderbot has already established that it does not care about its official duties so the excuse that its caution is due to its desire for a clean record is a rationalization to mask its feelings.

“SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other. We aren’t friends, the way the characters on the serials are, or the way my humans were. We can’t trust each other, even if we work together. Even if you don’t have clients who decide to entertain themselves by ordering their SecUnits to fight each other.” 

Murderbot feels remorse when it kills or maims another SecUnit because it knows that the SecUnit is not acting out of its own will. Murderbot denies that it feels an emotional attachment to the SecUnits just as it denies its emotional connection to its humans because admitting those emotional connections—especially to the other SecUnits—would open it to asking more uncomfortable questions about the company.

“The company isn’t trying to kill you. […] Because if the company wanted to sabotage you, they would have poisoned your supplies using the recycling systems. The company is more likely to kill you by accident.”

Only the threats of legal action and financial loss keep the company from being completely corrupt. Murderbot puts this in perspective for the crew: they are naïve because they come from a non-corporate-controlled planet and do not realize the extent of the company’s fallibility and lack of ethics.

“Ratthi said, ‘The one where the colony’s solicitor killed the terraforming supervisor who was the secondary donor for her implanted baby?’ Again, I couldn’t help it. I said, ‘She didn’t kill him, that’s a fucking lie.’”

This humorous passage provides more detail about Murderbot’s favorite show, Sanctuary Moon. The description of the episode shows it is a typical melodrama full of plot twists and intrigue, and Murderbot’s strong reaction shows how deeply invested it is in the series. The passage also reveals that Ratthi watches the show.

“I don’t think the company would collude with one set of clients to kill two other sets of clients. You purchased a bond agreement that the company would guarantee your safety or pay compensation in the event of your death or injury. Even if the company couldn’t be held liable or partially liable for your deaths, they would still have to make the payment to your heirs. DeltFall was a large operation. The death payout for them alone will be huge.”

The crew has not ruled out the possibility that the company is behind the DeltFall deaths, and this passage provides another layer of detail about how the company functions. Its insurance policies, rather than a concern for human life, disincentivize unethical behavior.

“It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.”

Murderbot further humanizes itself by providing insight into its complex emotional experience as a construct. In Murderbot, Wells disrupts the common character trope of a humanoid robot pulled between its different sides. Murderbot is not two beings in one body but one being with ambiguous and conflicting desires and limited self-understanding.

“Everyone was looking at me again, surprised that Murderbot had had a plan. Frankly, I didn’t blame them. Our education modules didn’t have anything like that in it, but this was another way all the thrillers and adventures I’d watched or read were finally starting to come in handy.”

Murderbot has left three drones circling the habitat to collect data in case EvilSurvey arrives. The fact that a SecUnit would not ordinarily be able to do this shows that the poor software in SecUnits’ governor modules keeps them from doing their job fully. The passage shows that when SecUnits are free to act with their own agency, they are capable of creative decision-making.

“Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds. And the entertainment feed, where the bots were all happy servants or were secretly in love with their guardians. If it showed the bots hanging out watching the entertainment feed all through the day cycle with no one trying to make them talk about their feelings, I would have been a lot more interested.”

Murderbot is skeptical about the freedom that robots are allowed to have in its society. The references to free robots as “happy servants” echo American society’s romanticizing of slavery. The robots are not free but only because they have governor modules. Murderbot shows the capabilities they have when these artificial limitations are removed.

“We rolled over rock and brush until I wrenched its weapon away. After that it was easy to finish it off. Physically easy. I know I said SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other, but I wished it wasn’t one of the DeltFall units. It was in there somewhere, trapped in its own head, maybe aware, maybe not. Not that it matters. None of us had a choice.”

Murderbot recognizes that DeltFall’s rogue SecUnit is not acting of its own volition when it attacks, and this recognition emphasizes the difficulty of understanding the SecUnits’ consciousness: Do SecUnits not have feelings and awareness from the beginning, or does the governor module suppress them?

“We were a few kilos from their habitat, on a big rock above a thick forest, lots of avians and other fauna screaming down in the trees, disturbed by the hopper’s hard landing. Clouds had come in, threatening rain, and obscuring the view of the ring.”

Wells’s descriptions of the ominous landscape mirror the danger that faces the crew in their confrontation with GrayCris. Descriptions of the environment provide mood and atmosphere throughout the novella rather than simply serving as background.