Ratthi

Ratthi
Aliases	Dr. Ratthi
Affiliation	PreservationAux, Preservation Alliance
Occupation	Biologist (PreservationAux)
Physical description
Species	Human (unaugmented)
Gender	Male (he/him)

"The only tag I can access on Ratthi is a partial that says my human friend. That’s strange and unlikely, but the pre-catastrophic-failure version of me seemed sure about it..." (Exit Strategy)

Dr. Ratthi is a biologist working with the PreservationAux survey. He's one of the team's more expressive members, and he's close friends with Arada and Overse.

Biography

Ratthi is a biologist that grew up in the Preservation Alliance. He's had "a lot" of relationships with all genders and status of augmentation, and he's best friends with Arada and Overse.

He's on a survey with PreservationAux when a large local fauna attacks his team. The survey gets worse when they discover that another survey team on the same planet has fallen silent (DeltFall). PreservationAux sends an away-team to investigate the cause, and when they come back, the team is forced to evacuate their own habitat soon after. They're able to evade capture, and in the end the team is able to trigger GreyCris' emergency beacon and call for help, leading to their rescue.

After the events of All Systems Red, Ratthi, Pin-Lee, and Gurathin stay with Mensah until the political leader is kidnapped and held for ransom. When Murderbot reappears (Exit Strategy) they're able to rescue her, and then rescue Murderbot when it becomes trapped at the last second. After they all finally return to Preservation and the string of crisis resolves.

The aftermath is slow to settle, and early on in this process Ratthi and the team stay close to Preservation Station, passing the time by finishing their survey reports. (Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory) After this, Murderbot helps Preservation Station Security solve a murder, and it enlists Ratthi and Gurathin's help along the way. (Fugitive Telemetry) Ratthi does not have permanent housing aboard Preservation Station, but he's able to stay in temporary housing, which is offered freely.

The next survey he goes on is at an independent site outside the Corporation Rim, led by Arada. Their sea research facility is attacked by raiders at the end of the survey. They just barely make it back to Preservation pace when ART, captured and controlled by 'Targets' (lost colonists and targetControlSystem, kidnaps Murderbot, Amena, and everyone in the facility safepod when it attaches to ART's hull (Ratthi, Overse, Arada, and Thiago). Eventually they're all able to regroup, and they agree (under duress) to help ART rescue its kidnapped crew. They succeed, despite the many detours and dangers this entails, and towards the end of Network Effect they're able to meet with an envoy from Preservation, reuniting with their friends and going back home.

Personality

Ratthi has a lively sense of humor and tends to be emotional. While Ratthi is initially the first human to try to get Murderbot to talk about its feelings (to Murderbot’s intense discomfort), he is later on one of the most accepting of Murderbot on its own terms. Murderbot notes that Ratthi listens to it carefully, and in return, Murderbot seems to be more comfortable with Ratthi than with anyone else other than Dr. Mensah.

Physical Appearance

An image of actor Sendhil Ramamurthy.

Ratthi's physical appearance has been left generally unspecified, but in Network Effect, he is noted as being taller than Iris.

Ratthi is mentioned at the end of All Systems Red to be wearing a soft grey jacket with the PreservationAux survey logo. When Ratthi is trapped in a safepod outside ART's hull, he wears a Preservation EVAC suit.

Martha Wells has said extra-textually, "Ratthi is super hot. We're talking Sendhil Ramamurthy levels of hot."

Official Art

The Murderbot Diaries has an illustration of an offscreen moment in Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory where Murderbot, realizing that Mensah has been accosted by an unwanted reporter, rushes to her rescue. Ratthi says afterwards, “SecUnit jumped over my head!”, and when Mensah left the group Arada's bare feet had been in Overse's lap. Arada, Bharadwaj, Gurathin, Murderbot, Overse, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi were all present in this scene.

Notes

• When asked in an interview "If you had to spend a day with a character from a series you wrote, and in their world, who would you choose?" Martha Wells responded, "I think Ratthi might be the most fun to hang out with."
• Ratthi has never completed weapons training and hates getting shot at.
• Ratthi has a lucky spare interface, mentioned in Exit Strategy.