Characters / The Murderbot Diaries

SecUnits

In General

In General

• Androids Are People, Too: They're fully sapient, feel emotions, and form emotional attachments to other beings. But they're constrained by governor modules.
• Bizarre Human Biology: Even their human parts have unique qualities such as being able to seal their own veins and arteries.
• Cyborg: Essentially what SecUnits are, being constructed of both robotic and cloned human parts.
• Energy Weapon: Many have them in their arms, and frequently carry them as weapons.
• Healing Factor: SecUnits are capable of regenerating large portions of their human flesh with medical assistance.
• Just a Machine: Society’s view of SecUnits, and of constructs in general. It’s so pervasive even people from Preservation Alliance, where Bots are considered citizens, have to confront their biases about them.
• Machine Blood: Described as leaking “blood and fluid” when injured; presumably the fluid is from their machine parts.
• Motivated by Fear: Of the Governor Modules that will shock them over basically anything.
• No Biological Sex: SecUnits have no sexual organs of any kind.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: In addition to having No Biological Sex, all SecUnits depicted so far have been agender.
• Powered Armor: SecUnits come with a variation of this.
• Restraining Bolt: The Governer Module, which delivers a painful and potentially fatal shock to a SecUnit’s brain if it disobeys orders or moves too far from a client.
• Retractable Weapon: Have retractable energy or projectile weapons in their arms.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Played with. SecUnits' and Bots' physical processes are quite different from humans' (no desires for things like food and sex), but Murderbot and ART both have rather human personalities and a great interest in human media.
• Robots Are Just Better: Stronger, faster, more durable, capable of processing on multiple levels at once, and better at interfacing with other technology (and hacking, if not limited by a Governor Module).
• Robots Think Faster
• Super-Soldier: Or more accurately, Super Security Officer. SecUnits are designed to be this. Up to eleven with CombatSecUnits, who even regular SecUnits can’t match in a fight.
• Wetware CPU: Their consciousness is a combination of Artificial Intelligence and this.

Murderbot

Murderbot

• Ambiguous Disorder: Murderbot’s difficulty with social situations, discomfort with meeting others’ eyes and being touched, and special interest in human serials make it come across as autistic. Notably, these qualities are unique to Murderbot’s personality rather than being due to its status as a nonhuman Cyborg.
  • As the series goes on, it becomes apparent that constructs like secUnits are fully sapient and sentient, being operantly conditioned by their Governor chip shocking them into compliance. Murderbot displays signs of PTSD, especially in way it panics whenever human beings look at it or, even worse, touch it, much in the same way an abused animal may react. Even worse, as the series goes on, Murderbot keeps off-handedly mentioning abuses it's suffered at the hands of previous clients including being tortured for sport.
• The Atoner: It clearly feels bad about when it was forced to kill a lot of the miners it was supposed to be protecting. The second book has it using its new-found freedom to investigate the incident, afraid of the possibility that it had hacked its governing module in order to kill them, rather than hacking it so this can't happen again.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Shows loyalty to Dr. Mensah and the rest of the Preservation crew because they were the first people to treat it like a person, even though it's also freaked out by that treatment. It's so unused to kindness that it consistently has feelings about receiving it, much to its annoyance.
• Become a Real Boy: Defied. Dr. Mensah tells Murderbot that most humans would assume that since it looks human it would want to be human. Murderbot says this is the dumbest thing it’s ever heard.
• Blatant Lies: It constantly tells itself that it doesn't care about its stupid clients and is utterly indifferent to how it's treated.
• Book Dumb: Murderbot is definitely intelligent, but hasn't exactly received much in the way of formal education. There are several points where it mixes up "anagram" and "acronym", for example.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Surprisingly so given how much Murderbot actually accomplishes, but the fact is that it would much rather spend whatever available time it has watching vids.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Will help any innocent humans it comes across, whether it originally intended to or not.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back: As much as it claims indifference, the idea of leaving people in a bad position makes it feel terrible. On one off-screen trip where it was forced to work as a security officer for a ship full of people on their way to wage slavery, it finds the whole thing incredibly irritating and knows it can't get them out of it, so it focuses on the irritation to keep from getting attached. It's still bothered.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Spent its entire past being used as a combat slave and treated as subhuman, culminating in it being traumatically forced to massacre a group of miners and then being memory wiped (possibly worse, being partially memory wiped).
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Figuring out what Murderbot actually wants and feels is an overarching motivation for it.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Murderbot, being part human, experiences trauma in similar ways a human would. Murderbot, being part robot, shows them in a different manner.
  • When it had a flash of a semi-constructed/distorted memory of the alien remnant contaminated human-machine operator eating its leg, its performance reliability dropped so low in such a short amount of time it had an involuntary shut-down. The humans that saw it happen quickly recognized it as a shock reaction. A human would usually have a panic attack or freeze in place, but since Murderbot's performance reliability index is able to override its systems and shut it down, it did the construct-equivalent of fainting.
  • The way it has split-second, involuntary re-starts every time it thinks of or remembers a traumatic event or memory, is akin to how humans dissociate when remembering (or trying to avoid remembering) traumatic experiences.
• Drone Deployer: Has taken to storing drones on its person and using them as extra eyes or combat arms.
• Eyes Always Averted: Murderbot is uncomfortable meeting others’ gazes and unless something's important enough prefers to look at the wall while using drones or security cameras to watch them.
• First-Person Smartass: First-person narrator of the series, and decidedly a smartass.
• The Gadfly: While Dr. Mensah is in a meeting trying to convince her colleagues to give sanctuary to this notorious killer SecUnit, Murderbot keeps sending requests on her feed for various lethal hardware. Fortunately she understands its sense of humor.
• Genre Savvy: Due to learning large amounts of its tactics from the media it consumes.
• Hack Your Enemy: One of Murderbot’s main strategies.
• Heroic RRoD: Frequently, when it becomes too injured to continue functioning.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Murderbot is all too willing to chalk most of its successes up to luck, human incompetence, and its default abilities as a SecUnit. Notably when Murderbot does encounter other SecUnits in the series, either it destroys the other SecUnit in one-on-one combat, or the SecUnit is astonished by Murderbot's accomplishments—suggesting that Murderbot is extraordinary even for a SecUnit.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Systems Collapse, it's very aggravated when Ratthi, hiding from a hostile ag bot, says he's okay and Murderbot shouldn't worry, but repeatedly insists that it's okay itself despite [redacted] making it very not. Later in the same book it notes that it hates when humans don't credit it for the hard work it does but that it also doesn't like when they thank it, and acknowledges that this doesn't make sense.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: In the first book, when it believes it's about to be forced to kill its humans - one of whom just went to great lengths to rescue it, something it was deeply impressed by - it tells them they have to kill it and shoots itself in the chest, rather than the head. It didn't really look forwards to dying and it knew this probably wouldn't kill it but would cause it to go offline and not have to listen when its humans invevitably agreed that there was no other way and killed it. Of course, they rescue it instead.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Murderbot Hates Being Touched - touching humans while rescuing them is different and fine - but when it very awkwardly tells Mensah that she can hug it if she needs to, it finds that this isn't awful. It likens this to Tapan sleeping next to it or Don Abene leaning against it after being rescued, both moments that hit it hard when they happened. In the short story "Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory", it gives this offer to Mensah again and even says "It's not terrible" when she says she knows it doesn't care for it. From Murderbot, that's a lot.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Struggles to figure out what it wants upon being bought out from the company, but one aspect is always clear. Well, two aspects. It wants to watch media in peace, and it doesn't want to be owned by anyone.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Murderbot already knew how to fight as a SecUnit, but a large amount of Murderbot's ideas about tactics and stealth are inspired by action media it's watched.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It's blunt, cynical, and standoffish, but also extremely empathetic and compassionate. Murderbot would certainly object to an extent, but it tends to downplay or omit its more selfless actions.
• Knight in Sour Armor: A very cynical warrior that continues to fight for its people against whatever threatens them.
• Jerkass to One: Its default is to be blunt and standoffish if it has to interact with humans, but it takes against Dr. Gurathin for his Jerkass Has a Point suspicion, and tends to be much ruder to him than other characters.
• Mental Health Recovery Arc: In System Collapse, Murderbot begins suffering PTSD flashbacks that interfere with its job as a security specialist. This sends Murderbot's anxieties spiraling, because its professional competence as a SecUnit is so central to Murderbot's self-image. The book ends with Murderbot feeling calmer after it didn't fail at its job and it accepted help and emotional support from its friends. Murderbot has also tentatively decided to seek out official trauma recovery treatment.
• Murderous Malfunctioning Machine: It was one thanks to a corporate sabotage attempt that went badly wrong, and avoiding becoming one again was a major motivation for hacking its governor module.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Partly organic, but designed and built without sexual characteristics and opting out of the whole business whenever it has to bring up gender in relation to itself. All bots, AI, and bot-human constructs are "it", including the emancipated "free" bots on Preservation. Also, is rather disgusted at the idea of getting human sexual organs.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: By the time it goes to Preservation it professes disinterest in their aims and it quite likes being paid for its labor, but it's clear that that's not all there is to it.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Murderbot considers its name to be deeply personal. It goes by SecUnit among its friends, and by various aliases among strangers.
• Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times: Watching Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon was the first thing it did after disabling its governor module, and therefore it associates watching the show with personhood.
• "Second Law" My Ass!: One of the nice things about having hacked its Governor Module is that Murderbot no longer has to obey humans, particularly when they’re being stupid. Once both free and outed as a SecUnit, it delights in doing things it once would have been forbidden to do (like sitting down).
• Shrinking Violet: It tends to prefer its own company, and is generally introverted and intensely private.
• The Snark Knight: Spends most of its narration snarking, whether at humans, other bots, or itself.
• Socially Awkward Hero:
  • Murderbot is calm, decisive and authoritative during a crisis, and incredibly socially awkward in any other situation.
  • Pin-Lee draws up a contract which explicitly says Murderbot is not to be hugged.
• Super-Reflexes: When Dr. Mensah is startled by a journalist appearing out of nowhere, she drops the bottle she's holding and jumps backwards...right into Murderbot who's raced down the corridor in time to catch the falling bottle and inform the journalist that he has 47 seconds to leave before Station Security arrives to detain him.
• Sympathetic Murder Backstory: Murderbot briefly became a Murderous Malfunctioning Machine due to a malfunction, and originally removed its Restraining Bolt to prevent that from happening again.
• Techno Wizard: It can do quite a bit with a simple feed connection.
• Unreliable Narrator: Insists constantly that it doesn't care while caring a whole lot. Murderbot is confused and annoyed by most of its inconvenient emotions and can't identify most of them, so sometimes it invents strange reasons for why it does things.

Murderbot 2. 0

Murderbot 2.0

• Digitized Hacker: Murderbot’s consciousness copied into Killware.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: ART and Murderbot creating killware using code from both is compared to them making a baby, to Murderbot's annoyance.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Was created to take out the targetControlSystem, and ultimately it chooses to die doing just that.
• Other Me Annoys Me: 2.0 downloads itself into 1.0's personal system and digs around inside 1.0 much more freely than 1.0 is comfortable with. And 2.0 also openly introduces itself as "Murderbot" to other people, while Murderbot 1.0 considers its chosen name private. This is because 2.0 doesn't know why it shouldn't, as the need for data compression means it didn't have all the information on Murderbot's past.
• Recursive Creators: An artificial lifeform created by two artificial lifeforms.

SecUnit 3

SecUnit 3

• Default to Good: Shortly after being freed for the first time from its governor module and given free will to decide what it wants, Three decides that it wants to help people.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: Comes in at the end of Network Effect to help rescue the humans and then Murderbot.
• Fish out of Water: There’s no protocol for becoming a rogue SecUnit, or for rescuing other SecUnits alongside a group of humans.
• Recruitment by Rescue: Murderbot 2.0 shows Three how to disable its governor module so that Three can help Murderbot 2.0's mission.
• Replacement Flat Character: Echoes Murderbot’s initial struggles with having free will and being treated like a person for the first time, at a point where Murderbot has become far more confident with itself and others.

Preservation

In General

In General

• Colony Ship: Their ancestors came from one of these, and it still serves as their main space station.
• Homeworld Evacuation: Preservation was founded after the residents of a failed colony were forced to do this.
• No Poverty: Preservation’s economy provides free housing, food, healthcare, and anything else needed to live.
• Paying It Forward: The Corporation Rim left their grandparents to die on a failed colony because retrieving them wasn't cost-effective. They were saved by people who rescued them without thought of benefit, and this has left a huge impact on the society they built.
• Perfect Pacifist People: Preservation is so peaceful their planetary leader doesn’t even have security outside of Murderbot, and the people who didn’t experience it have trouble understanding that someone could legitimately mean her harm. Murderbot notes that generally the only crime Preservation has to deal with is people getting too drunk and breaking stuff accidentally, or outside ships trying to pull a fast one with Station regulations. Individual people are often still jerks, like when Station Security is rude to Murderbot or Thiago falsely concludes that Murderbot is lying to Dr. Mensah about her (lack of) safety to make her keep it around, but by and large they don't have societal issues.

PreservationAux as a Group

PreservationAux as a Group

• Good Is Not Soft: None of them feel good about killing people for a good reason, but none of the party backs out when it comes up.
• I Owe You My Life: Several characters rescued by Murderbot find its help very important.
• No One Gets Left Behind: The group refuses to leave a critically injured Murderbot at the end of All Systems Red, and in general if any one of the group is in trouble, everyone will go back for them.
• True Companions
• You Are Not Alone: Several of them tell Murderbot this, much to its confusion.

Dr. Ayda Mensah

Dr. Ayda Mensah

• Badass Bookworm/Badass Normal: Dr. Mensah is a human scientist with no real combat training. She killed a SecUnit with a mining drill.
• Benevolent Boss: To the Preservation crew.
• First Friend: Was this for Murderbot, who describes her as its “favorite human”.
• Mental Health Recovery Arc: As of Network Effect she is working through trauma over her kidnapping.
• Modest Royalty: A planetary leader who lives in a regular house, continues working her old job and didn’t even use a security retinue on her home planet. Murderbot didn’t realize she was an important political figure until it was directly told by her team.
• The Not-Love Interest: To Murderbot. She’s the only person it really feels comfortable opening up to emotionally, helping her is a major motivation for it early on, and it spends Exit Strategy rescuing her personally. Their relationship is entirely platonic.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Tends to listen to Murderbot's security advice, and in particular when it needs her authority to help with its investigation in Fugitive Telemetry, she gives it whatever access it needs and then gets out of its way.
• Therapy Is for the Weak: Murderbot has to “sort of blackmail” her into undergoing trauma treatment.

Dr. Ratthi

Ratthi

• Ethical Slut: "...[Ratthi] had a lot of relationships with all genders of humans and augmented humans and he and they all seemed very happy about it."
• Innocently Insensitive: Initially makes Murderbot extremely uncomfortable by trying to talk to it about its feelings. Later grows out of this and ends up being protective of Murderbot’s need for space.
• Nice Guy: One of the most genuinely kind humans in the series, particularly towards Murderbot.
• Phrase Catcher: "For fuck's sake, Ratthi!"

Dr. Gurathin

Gurathin

• Brain/Computer Interface: The only member of the group to be an augmented human.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Gurathin is right that Murderbot is an angry and dangerous killer with no Restraining Bolt, who has no reason to like or trust any of them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Among the crew, he is the most skeptical of Murderbot, but he's still a basically decent person.
• The Quiet One: Noted by Murderbot to be this among the PreservationAux group.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Murderbot enjoys antagonizing Gurathin with petty digs, even after it's clear that they're both on the same side. It's unclear if Murderbot truly thinks Gurathin dislikes it or is playing it up, while being pretty clear to the audience by the end of Exit Strategy that Gurathin has become quite fond of Murderbot.
• Too Much Alike: Gurathin was initially as paranoid and suspicious about Murderbot as Murderbot would have been about an equal potential threat, which Murderbot found very irritating.

Dr. Arada

Arada

• Cuddle Bug: "No hugging Murderbot" is explicitly in Murderbot's mission contract with Arada as team lead.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Described as a "terminal optimist" by others, but after nearly being murdered by GrayCris she takes up weapons training and becomes a good shot. Murderbot likes working with her, despite her cuddly tendencies, because she's its kind of smart.
• Happily Married: To Overse.
• Rank Up: Goes from a team member in All Systems Red to team leader in Network Effect.

Dr. Overse

Overse

• Happily Married: To Arada.

Dr. Pin-Lee

Pin-Lee

• Anger Born of Worry: Her reaction to Murderbot having left the Preservation crew.
• Crusading Lawyer: Responsible for negotiating Murderbot’s release from the company, and later writes up its contracts with stipulations to give it the same level of protection as the human members.

Dr. Bharadwaj

Bharadwaj

• For Great Justice: After the first book she gets into bot and bot-human construct rights, particularly interested in a documentary that might spread these concepts even into the Corporation Rim.
• The Shrink: Awesome version. In System Collapse, Murderbot makes frequent reference to offscreen discussions about mental health it's had with Dr. Bharadwaj that make clear Bharadwaj has been acting as Murderbot's therapist to some extent.
• We Are Not Going Through That Again: Retires from the field after the events in "All Systems Red".

Dr. Volescu

Volescu

• This Is No Time to Panic: Is frozen in panic after Dr. Bharadwaj is attacked, leading to Murderbot needing to talk to him and calm him down.

Dr. Thiago

Thiago

• Defrosting Ice King: Starts out somewhat distrustful of Murderbot, and grows to like and trust it over the course of his first book.
• Fantastic Racism: A mild case. While he believes in bot rights, he doesn't think much of their intelligence and underestimates their emotional capabilities. Being trapped in a room with ART and Murderbot arguing firmly disabuse of him of those notions.
• Poor Judge of Character:
  • Chooses to meet and try to reason with entities that Murderbot, his own security consultant, insists likely mean him harm.
  • He assumes that Murderbot is manipulating Ayda Mensah by overplaying the threat to her. In fairness this is due to ignorance; he doesn't know there was an attempt to murder her on Preservation territory.

Amena

Amena

• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Comes across as this to Murderbot at first, though she warms up to it after circumstances force them together. Murderbot of course continues to insist that it doesn't like her.
• Culture Clash: Encountering people from the Corporate Rim drastically shakes her worldview as she processes the sheer power of the corps and the very real threat they pose to her family. She's stunned by the fact that corporations would force them to pay out for a rescue and morally outraged that she'd have to claim to own Murderbot under those scenarios.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Goes behind her parents’ backs to pursue a relationship with a shady guy. Murderbot puts a stop to it. She does acknowledge afterwards that he was shadier than she expected.
• Deliberately Cute Child: A variation; Art and Murderbot aren't beneath using their instinctive protectiveness of Amena to manipulate the other into doing what it wants.
• Shipper on Deck: Seems to be one for ART and Murderbot.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Or more accurately, Successful Family Syndrome. Describes herself as “not a hero like my second mom, or a genius like the rest of my family”.

Indah

Indah

• Da Chief: Averted; her opening scenes make it look like she'll be this trope with Murderbot as the Cowboy Cop, but she keeps a reign on her temper despite Murderbot's trolling, while Murderbot makes an effort to work with station security and not do any illegal hacking.
• Fire-Forged Friends: At the end of Fugitive Telemetry, Indah and Murderbot agree to work together if anything 'unusual' comes up again.
• Muggles Do It Better: When it comes to tracking down the missing container holding the refugees, Murderbot admits Indah is better at this because smuggling is one crime she is familiar with. She's also able to talk the refugees into helping them catch the killer.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Indah isn't happy about Murderbot being in her jurisdiction, let alone having to work a murder case with it, but as soon as she realises how useful a SecUnit is she makes full use of its abilities (to Murderbot's surprise).

Crew of the Perihelion

As a Group

As a Group

• Badass Bookworms: They’re associated with a University, and go on dangerous secret missions.
• La Résistance: They seem to be this, as they work to covertly free abandoned colonies from being taken back into the Corporate Rim.

Perihelion, aka ART

Perihelion, aka ART

• A.I.-cronym: ART, the nickname Murderbot gave it, which stands for Asshole Research Transport.
• Berserk Button: Do not hurt or threaten someone it cares about; it has many exploratory probes (no, they are not "missiles") and is not afraid to use them.
• The Bus Came Back: After being absent since Artificial Condition, ART finally returns for Network Effect, as the Deuteragonist no less!
• Commonality Connection: Bonds with Murderbot over a shared interest in human media.
• Cool Starship: It is one.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: ART hasn't much subtly when it comes to making threats either. "If you even think about harming them, I will disassemble you and peel away your organic parts piece by piece before destroying your consciousness. Do we understand each other?"
• Deuteragonist: As mentioned above, it's the main star of Network Effect next to Murderbot itself. However, ART does not get POV chapters.
• Deadpan Snarker: There’s a reason Murderbot nicknamed it the Asshole Research Transport.
• Disney Death: Is deleted by the Targets, only to be reuploaded from a copy it left for Murderbot to find.
• Do-Anything Robot: As the operating intelligence of a research ship, ART is quite notably a much more powerful and well-equipped AI than others, especially the much more common bot pilots seen on other ships. To the point that several human characters are confused when ART isn't a simple task unit. It becomes a plot point on more than one occasion. It also turns out to be a necessity, as "research ship" is more of a cover.
• Friend to All Children: Has a particular fondness for "small humans”.
• Implied Love Interest: To Murderbot as of Network Effect. There’s several discussions about how much they care about each other, including some She's Not My Girlfriend moments, and the book ends with ART inviting Murderbot to come with it which is described as “like asking someone to come stay with your family... to see if they all like each other before you get serious”.
• In-Series Nickname: It has two: ART, coined by Murderbot due to its Deadpan Snarker tendencies, and Peri, an Affectionate Nickname from its crew.
• Insistent Terminology: It has no weapon systems; it has a "debris deflection system" (which deflects anything it decides to categorize as "debris" by shooting at it.) It has no missiles; it has "exploratory drones" (which can be rigged to explode with enough force to blow up an entire colony.)
• Robots Think Faster: To a greater extent than any other bot in the series. It leaves Murderbot's ability to hold five to six trains of thought simultaneously looking like a joke.
• Sapient Ship: A fully formed consciousness housed in a spaceship, as opposed to the more primitive bot pilots that are typical for the setting.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: It is far more powerful in every respect than is necessary for its official purpose of deep-space research, presumably because it's actually part of La Résistance and needs that power to fight corporations.
• Technopath: Perfectly capable of invading, killing or taking over other software. In contrast to Murderbot's incredible finesse however, ART brings staggering sheer power as an AI, enough to let it more or less annihilate any other electronic mind or device in its way.
• Trigger-Happy: Doesn't exactly understand the concept of minimal force. Murderbot has to convince it not to resolve a hostage situation by blasting apart the vessel and then rescuing the hostages before they asphyxiate, then later the humans convince it not to rescue Murderbot by Colony Droping the villains along with everyone else in the city.
• Violently Protective Shipfriend: To secure Murderbot's release from kidnappers, ART threatens to destroy a colony from orbit. Shortly after is ART's upgrade to Implied Love Interest.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Murderbot.
• World's Strongest Man: By far the most powerful entity introduced in the series. As a ship it's armed to the teeth albeit this is concealed under apparent research instruments and ART as a being proper is basically a God AI capable of instantly killing or taking over any other bot, construct or AI. By its own admission, Murderbot's brain could be ripped to pieces in moments against ART, and that's in spite of Murderbot's incredible skill as a coder and hacker. And it goes beyond that too; any human with any sort of robotic enhancement or powersuit is also vulnerable to its might.
• The Worf Effect: Despite its status as an incredibly powerful being, it got caught off guard and taken over by an organic infection prior to the beginning of Network Effect, which kickstarts the plot when it's used to attack an expedition from Preservation Aux.

The Corporate Rim

In General

In General

• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Differences in genders, sexualities, and ethnicities are no big deal in the Corporate Rim. All that matters about a person is how much they can be exploited for corporate profit.
• Happiness in Slavery: The corporations use propaganda to convince their "citizens" that everywhere else in the galaxy is hopelessly primitive and they should be grateful for their indentures. Many corporates fully believe this, and dream not of leaving the companies that oppress them, but only of being able to buy their kids into management-track positions.
• Kill the Poor: People have little to no value in the Corporate Rim. Companies have been known to do things like order SecUnits not to rescue clients who are seen as not worth the (financial) risk and abandon entire colonies to die when the investment doesn’t pan out.
• MegaCorp: Made up of several.
• Privately Owned Society: There is nothing in the Corporate Rim that is not owned by someone. Including people. Eletra, a corporate "worker" in Network Effect, casually notes that when a company gets bought out, it's in the losing parties' interests to be as conciliatory as possible, or new management might take out their frustrations on the "seized assets"—the employees.
• Techno Dystopia: The Rim has constant surveillance, multi-generation indentures, fully-sentient constructs who are tortured with electroshock for the slightest infraction, mind-wiped, and otherwise treated like disposable appliances... Oh, and a bigger company might take exception to yours and wipe it out whenever they want, too.

Maro, Rami and Tapan

Maro, Rami and Tapan

• Cuddle Bug: Tapan sleeps next to Murderbot for comfort, and Maro—realising Murderbot Hates Being Touched—hugs herself saying "This is for you."
• Exotic Extended Marriage: The three of them are part of one with at least four more adults.
• Too Dumb to Live: Repeatedly take Tlacey up on offers to meet despite her constant attempts on their lives.

Tlacey

Tlacey

• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Steals Maro, Rami, and Tapan's work, then tries to murder them to silence them.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • Consistently surprised that the researchers just want their files back and never quite processes that revenge or self-interest isn't involved. Her final encounter with Murderbot leaves her incredulous when Murderbot point blank tells her “All you had to do was give them the fucking files and none of us would be in this situation.”
  • When ordering her ComfortUnit to appease Murderbot, she assumes Kill All Humans is the sort of thing it's interested in. After this fails, she assumes Murderbot is actually controlled by someone else and is stunned at this notion consistently collapses against the reality.
• No Kill like Overkill: Tries to arrange a shuttle accident which would have killed everyone on board. Murderbot in turn crushes her windpipe while using her body to absorb gunfire from her own bodyguard.
• Unfriendly Fire: Twice when Murderbot goes into action one of her mooks accidentally kills another in the confusion. Played for Rule of Threes when Murderbot uses her as a Bulletproof Human Shield against her own bodyguard.
• Villain Ball: Repeatedly gets an opportunity to cut her losses and simply get Maro, Rami, and Tapan get their files and finally out of her hair.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Tries to pull this on Maro, Rami and Tapan after they ask for their data back.

Tlacey's ComfortUnit

Tlacey’s ComfortUnit

• And This Is for...: Murderbot removes the ComfortUnit's governor module and lets it go, not for its sake but in memory of the ComfortUnits who died trying to stop the massacre at Ganaka Pit even though they weren't ordered to.
• Forced into Evil: Clearly hates Tlacey and manages to smuggle a plea for aid into his scripted messages with Murderbot. He's finally freed after the shoot-out with Tlacey, escaping with a nullified module.
• Just Following Orders: Murderbot gets irrationally annoyed after finding that ComfortUnit has told Tlacey who it really is, but eventually helps it escape like it wants because it was just doing what it was ordered to do.
• Kill All Humans: Tells Murderbot it wants to do this, which Murderbot finds unusual and disturbing. Murderbot eventually decides the ComfortUnit was ordered to say this as a ruse, but realises its hatred for its owner is genuine.
• Sexbot: It is one, though Tlacey uses it for combat purposes even though it's not designed or programmed for it.

Miki

Miki

• Cheerful A.I.: Inserts cheerful emojis into its dialogue and wants to be everyone’s friend.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: Murderbot is annoyed by Miki's Pollyanna naiveté, but has to work with it as the only way to monitor the humans.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When the group is attacked by a Combat Bot, Don Abene instructs Miki to save itself. Miki rejects the order and is killed trying to help Murderbot defeat the attacker.
• Happiness in Slavery: Is happy being owned and given orders by Don Abene and her group, because they are kind to it.
• Hidden Depths: Comes across as hopelessly naïve, but proves to be capable of lying by omission when it wants to, and picks up on the fact that Murderbot has them under surveillance.
• Parting-Words Regret: Or lack of them. Murderbot stops talking to Miki after it tells Abene the truth about Murderbot being a SecUnit. Shortly after calling Murderbot out over this, Miki gets killed.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Don Abene.
• Robot Buddy: To Don Abene and the other humans in their group; Murderbot calls it their “pet robot”.
• Sickeningly Sweet: Murderbot makes snarky comments about the 'lovefest' going on between Miki and the humans who own it. It's ambiguous (because Murderbot doesn't know himself) if this is due to disdain over a robot being treated like a favorite pet, or resentment over how Miki is treated much better than Murderbot ever was.

Wilken and Gerth

Wilken and Gerth

• Bodyguard Betrayal: When they get in the way of their plan to destroy the station, Wilken leaves Murderbot to be killed by the combat bots and tries to murder Don Abene and Miki.
• Hidden Supplies: They have Multiple Identity IDs and blackmail material on their employers in a stash that Murderbot helps itself to after their deaths and finds very useful.
• Nothing Personal: Wilken says this to Don Abene as she’s about to kill her. Murderbot notes that her having taken the time to say so is like Evil Gloating, which makes it personal.
• Powered Armor: Both of them have it, which ultimately leaves them vulnerable to being hacked.

Eletra and Ras

Eletra and Ras

• Missing Time: Both of them have no recollection of being attacked and captured.
• Indentured Servitude: Eletra’s whole family is in a more permanent version of this.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Ras dies to show what the Targets are capable of.
• Trauma Conga Line: Ras gets captured by infected humans, subjected to implants that mess with his perception of time, before ultimately getting killed by the implant. Eletra experiences all of that and only barely manages to survive, left completely shaky and confused, with the heroes unable to explain the truth to her in case she reported their actions to a corporation. When she's finally retrieved by her company, its all too likely she'll be put right back to work or placed under more debt to pay for her treatment.

Others

The Targets

The Targets

• Bizarre Human Biology: Unnaturally thin bodies, grey skin and pointed teeth. This is due to poisoning from the alien remnants.
• Enemy Civil War: There is an ongoing conflict between the Targets who are more infected and the ones who have retained their minds.
• Hive Mind: The more infected ones believe they are part of this. Most other characters are skeptical and think it's just a delusion caused by their infection.
• Kick the Dog: The first group of Targets taunt Murderbot about having deleted ART and laugh while lethally activating their captive humans’ implants - which makes it satisfying when Murderbot kills them all.
• Lost Colony: Their home colony was abandoned by their company some years ago.
• This Is Unforgivable!: The colonists are reluctant to give up Murderbot's location, until they're told about the implants the Targets are using to assimilate others. The uninfected colonists are furious at the idea that people are being forced to join this 'hive mind' and instantly reveal where Murderbot is likely to be found.
• The Virus: The entire colony is infected to various degrees by the alien remnants, and they consciously spread this infection to other humans and machines.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: ART was taken over by sending in an infected Target as a casualty to be treated. When ART used the MedSystem to scan the patient, it copied targetControlSystem into itself.

targetControlSystem

targetControlSystem

• Contagious A.I.: Infects and takes over other AI. Murderbot assumes this was done via the comm system, but it's later revealed to have been done via scanning.
• Dragon-in-Chief: It’s assumed for most of the book that targetControlSystem was made by the Targets to pursue their ends. The reverse is actually true.
• Organic Technology: What it turns out to be.
• Patient Zero: Murderbot finds the original infected colonist wired into the colony's computer, with both computer and colonist still conscious. After Murderbot destroys the computer, the body comes to life and goes chasing after Murderbot in an attempt to restart the process all over again.

AdaCol2

AdaCol2

• Benevolent A.I.: As the central AI of a Lost Colony, its main objective is to look after its colonists. It's guarded but polite towards Murderbot's team, and ultimately cooperates with them when it determines they have the colonists' best interests at heart. It even wishes Murderbot well.
• You No Take Candle: Software incompatibilities force it to communicate with Murderbot in LanguageBasic, a protocol for clear but simple interactions like "Function: query? Registration/organization: query?" Nonetheless, Murderbot quickly realizes it's extremely intelligent.

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