“I’m the security expert. You’re the humans who walk in the wrong place and get attacked by angry fauna. I have extracted living clients from situations that were less than nine percent survivable.” (Exit Strategy, Chapter 4)
Murderbot is a rogue SecUnit, the protagonist and main narrator of The Murderbot Diaries series. Formerly owned by the company, it was bought and freed by Dr. Mensah and now resides at Preservation Station.
Murderbot is a bot-human construct, specifically a SecUnit. Like all SecUnits, it has no gender or sex related parts, and it repeatedly states that sex-related things are uninteresting and, like all human things, somewhat disgusting to it. Other characters reference it using the pronouns “it” and “its” and Murderbot does not object, using the same pronouns for all other bots and constructs in its various encounters.
Approximately four years before the start of All Systems Red Murderbot hacked its governor module and has spent most of its free time since then browsing entertainment media, especially its favorite serial, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.
As a SecUnit, Murderbot is designed to interact with SecSystems and has skills in surveillance, data mining, combat, and computer systems. Murderbot has energy weapons built into its forearms, a skeleton of synthetic bone and metal, the ability to survive with very little air and no food (it can't eat; see also: SecUnit), and is considerably faster, stronger, and more durable than nearly all humans, even augmented humans.
Since hacking its governor module, Murderbot has developed considerable skills in hacking other systems, including the ability to manipulate security camera footage to remove its presence.
Personality[]
Murderbot describes itself as paranoid and anxious. As such, it is overly cautious (or perhaps the right amount of cautious). In Fugitive Telemetry, Murderbot states that it is "a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me."
Murderbot is subject to social anxiety around humans, and claims not to care about them, but actually spends much of its time worrying about and protecting them, even after it is no longer forced to do so by its governor module.
Murderbot does not like being looked at, so much so that it exhibits physical symptoms of stress ("My jaw was so tight it triggered a performance reliability alert in my feed. I said, "You don't need to look at me, I'm not a sexbot.""), and the PreservationAux team repeatedly describe it as "shy."
It physically removes itself when it feels overwhelmed, especially when forced to talk about its feelings ("That was too much attention. I turned around and walked into the corner, facing away from them."), and generally only looks at people it's speaking to through drones or security cameras. It strongly prefers to wear SecUnit armor with the faceplate opaqued, but by the request of Dr. Mensah, it keeps its helmet off. During uncomfortable social situations, Murderbot will sometimes mention wishing it had its armor, and considered taking armor from a dead SecUnit before evaluating that the armor was likely badly damaged.
Appearance[]
It has visible non-organic parts (but unspecified where) and organic skin in places, a visible neck port (on the back of its neck), and artificial inhuman-looking feet. It has hair on its head and eyebrows (that was once incredibly short but is now longer), and, after some enhancements from ART, it has sparse hair on its organic skin (to mimic a more human appearance).
Murderbot has no gender-specific parts, and has an incomplete digestive system (as SecUnits do not need to eat). Murderbot has energy guns in its arms. Murderbot has stated that the company logo is on its non-organic parts. It also has compartments in its body where it can store physical items, such as an area under its ribs where it stores ART's communication device and another compartment in its right arm where it stores data chips.
In Network Effect, Murderbot states that Supervisor Leonide has artificially smooth skin that is shockingly more smooth than its own (given it regenerates its skin often); this implies Murderbot's visible organic skin is more smooth than a standard human's skin.
In Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory, Mensah notes that Murderbot's body is "lean bulk."
Author Martha Wells has said that her mental image of Murderbot has medium brown skin tone and a lean build.[1]
Official Art[]
Murderbot has appeared on the cover of nearly every release in the series, as well as in an illustration for an interview, with a gallery of examples from each version below. For a more complete compilation of official art involving Murderbot, please see the Official Art Category page.
![Interview for Brookfield Institute[2]](/wiki/File:Sanctuary_moon.png "Sanctuary moon.png (1.25 MB)")
Notes[]
- Murderbot refers to people by their feed addresses.[3]
- Murderbot confuses the terms anagram and acronym.
- Martha Wells has stated that Murderbot has undiagnosed PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
- She has also said that her mental image of Murderbot has medium brown skin tone and a lean build.[1]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://marthawells.dreamwidth.org/465015.html?thread=735351#cmt735351
- ↑ Surviving the Corporate Galaxy: An interview with Martha Wells for the Brookfield Institute. (https://brookfieldinstitute.ca/surviving-the-corporate-galaxy-an-interview-with-martha-wells/)
- ↑ Five Things You Don't Know About the Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells, https://marthawells.dreamwidth.org/511317.html