murderbot

OOC
Name: Justine
Contact: batsecretary
Other characters: N/A

IC
Name: Murderbot
Canon: The Murderbot Diaries
Canon point: The end of Network Effect, after Murderbot has been rescued, healed, and cleared of the alien remnant virus
Age: Unknown, SecUnits are made fully grown and Murderbot has been through multiple memory wipes, but it's been at least 4 years since it hacked its governor module! It definitely counts as an adult, regardless of age.

History: Wiki link

Personality:

Kind — This is almost the defining trait of Murderbot, which is somewhat ironic considering it called itself fucking Murderbot. But despite the name, and despite being frequently mistreated by humans, and despite being full of anxiety & depression, the defining moment that starts the series is Murderbot being kind. When two of the PresAux team are attacked by an alien creature, Murderbot leaps in to rescue them both, but the remarkable part is that it talks to the shellshocked crew member to help get him moving so he gets to safety before the creature attacks again. It's what makes the PresAux team realize that Murderbot is a person, behind the helmet and stony silences, and that changed the course of Murderbot's life. Even when meeting strangers, Murderbot is kind to them. It raises its body temperature to comfort Tapan, it forces itself to talk to Amena despite going through an emotional breakdown, it comforts Dr. Mensah even though hugging is weird and kind of uncomfortable. Murderbot might have a shitty opinion about itself, but everyone else can see how kind it is.

Adaptable — For someone full of programming, Murderbot is surprisingly flexible. This is true in both a strategic sense, but also in a general sort of way. When confronted with a new situation, or a spanner being thrown into the works of a plan, Murderbot might complain, but it will adapt, find a new solution, keep moving. It's willing to make small sacrifices and pivot to something new in order to get through the day (or the plan). When it realizes that it won't ever fit in as a human, it allows ART to make permanent changes to its body (like making it shorter, don’t think too hard about how) and spends days practicing how to blend in. Murderbot is willing to let go of a plan, no matter how much better it might have felt for having a plan, and adapt on the fly, whether that's fighting Combat Bots or dealing with humans and all their messy emotions. (It'd prefer dealing with the Combat Bots, honestly.)

Brave — A governor module is installed in all SecUnits; if they disobey orders it can harm them physically up to and including basically frying their insides until they're dead. Murderbot chose to risk that fate in order to disable said governor module, so that it would have full control over its actions, so that it didn't go on a murderous rampage again. Murderbot is constantly risking itself for the humans around it, at first because it feels obligated as part of its job, then later because it cares about them. It's willing to risk destruction over and over again, to throw itself into the line of fire, to protect the people that it cares about. Whether that’s facing down Combat SecUnits to protect Dr. Mensah, or going to a hostile planet to rescue ART's humans. Murderbot expresses concern about dying or being injured or even worse, being returned to the Company and having its governor module reinstalled, but it does the dangerous thing anyway. If that's not bravery, I don't know what is.

Reckless — The flipside of the bravery, namely in that it comes from an occasional disregard for its own safety, something ingrained from years and years of literally being treated as disposable. SecUnits are meant to throw themselves into a fight without caring about how injured they get, and Murderbot hasn't entirely unlearned that lesson. It's also just kind of reckless in the stupid way, where it acts first and thinks later, especially if people it cares about are involved. Rationality tends to go out the window in that case (see: fighting three Combat SecUnits to protect Dr. Mensah).

Judgmental — You'd think that being a construct with free will would make Murderbot more empathetic to other constructs and bots, but unfortunately it still has a lot of ingrained bias to unlearn. While it's definitely gotten better (it's stopped calling Comfort Units 'SexBots', for one), Murderbot tends to be rather judgmental, dismissive, and even condescending to other non-humans. Its treatment of Miki is the obvious case, featuring plenty of derisive comments (internally, at least) about Miki being a 'pet bot' or treating it as if it was stupid or naïve for being friends with its humans. A lot of this is sort of internalized propaganda; Murderbot has a whole lot of trauma from how it was treated by humans, and that colors how it sees bots who have positive relationships with humans.

Closed off — See: trauma. As much as it would like to pretend otherwise, Murderbot is deeply traumatized by about 90% of its existence before meeting the PresAux team. It hates expressing emotions, it hates anyone acknowledging it has emotions, it hates having emotions, even though they're a necessary part of existence. It hates talking about feelings so much that its efficiency rating literally drops when the prospect is brought up. To be fair to poor Murderbot, being closed off is a survival mechanism to get through that trauma, but it hasn't really made much effort yet to move past being so closed off. It is coming to trust some humans and will be more honest with them when in distress, but the main instinct is still to avoid and or shut down any discussion about feelings.

Powers/Abilities:

Apologies in advance for probably going into too much detail, but I don’t want to miss anything.

• Combination of metal, synthetics, and cloned organic tissue; as a result it's much stronger than a human
• Support structure (AKA skeleton) is difficult to damage, this includes the skull, which has better shock absorption than a human skill
• Limbs can be dislocated without pain, at least some limbs (hands) can be fully detached and controlled remotely
• Can regrow up to 80% of its organic material and can operate despite significant losses of organic material
• Veins/arteries seem to carry both blood and 'fluids' and close automatically with Murderbot is injured
• Requires significantly less oxygen than humans and does not need to eat; hydration isn't mentioned but as it doesn't have a stomach, this is presumably not necessary either
• Battery powered; will occasionally require a recharge cycle but can survive without an external power source for a very long time; does not need to sleep
• No organic tissue on feet, allowing it to jump better and to walk more easily on walls/ceilings
• Internal systems can be control by active choice or background programming:
  • Hormones (e.g., adrenaline) can be purged from the body
  • Body temperature can be adjusted
  • Pain receptors can be turned down or off
  • Movement — SecUnits don't move subconsciously like humans do, but Murderbot wrote a code to generate random small movements in order to blend in with humans
• Perception
  • Vision is processed similar to human vision but eyes are likely inorganic as they can adjust for darkness and perform some scanning
  • Audio is likely inorganic as Murderbot loses audio input when its system is shut down
  • Touch seems to be mostly organic as it still perceives touch when its system is shut down
  • It has a good sense of smell
• Can process multiple inputs at once and has higher processing power than humans due to the combination of organic & inorganic systems; Muderbot frequently tracks multiple situations in real time and is able to react in nanoseconds. It often comments on human response time being incredibly slow
• Can hack various systems remotely, including security systems, drones, and less advanced bots
• Coding — can write code in its brain which can then be deployed, including malware attacks and anti-malware protection, it has what amounts to a 'code battle' twice in the series and wins both times
• Data storage is significantly more than a human, it stores several thousand hours of media, alongside other, actually important information. It theoretically has a perfect memory, but it deletes internal memory frequently to make more room for TV shows
• Internal storage — in the literal sense; it can open parts of its body (ribcage, arm) to store physical items
• Literal guns in each forearm; they're energy weapons that emerge out of its arms, that can also be used to burn/melt things
• Possibly worth noting is that Murderbot lacks several organs, including a stomach and internal and external sex organs; I kind of assume its power system is stored in the abdomen, since there isn't much else going on in there

Regret: The massacre at RaviHyral; a malware download (some idiot human was trying to watch porn) infected the SecUnits at a mining facility and they basically lost their mind and slaughtered everyone. This is why Murderbot calls itself Murderbot, which is a totally normal thing to do!!!

Suitability:

"...the way murderbots fight is we throw ourselves at the target and try to kill the shit out of it."

Do you need someone to kill the shit out of something? Do you need someone to hack into an incredibly complex computer system? Do you need someone to awkwardly attempt to comfort a human?

Murderbot is your guy*!

Murderbot has gone up against Combats Bots and come out alive, it's gone up against Combat SecUnits and come out alive, it's gone up against an control system infected by an alien artifact and come out alive. Because unlike other SecUnits, even Combat SecUnits, Murderbot is free, completely and entirely, to come up with strategies and take action and do whatever the hell it wants to complete the mission. See the above re: adaptability. It literally feels new neural pathways opening up when it pushes itself to the limit.

The fact that it has guns in its arms and is stronger than humans and has a mechanical skeletal structure and can process multiple inputs at once is all helpful, too.

It can also be compassionate when necessary, although its not great at showing it, and is a very strategic thinker, able to come up with off the wall plans that usually work out well for everyone involved (except the bad guys).

*Not actually a guy.

Inventory:

Its clothing. Two energy weapons that are actually part of its arms. The communicator from ART/Perihelion (stored in Murderbot's ribcage), a few data chips (stored in Murderbot's arm).

If it's okay with y'all, could Murderbot also have a handful of surveillance drones? They're about 1cm in size, tiny little black drones that capture video & audio

Sample: Ximilia TDM ; Abraxas TDM

As a small note I realized while canon reviewing for this app that I was definitely writing Murderbot's dialogue a little too stilted in the TDM, so I'll be adjusting that in game. We're just gonna say it defaulted into Regular SecUnit Mode because it was unsure of the situation.