Honestly, Good On You! High Five, Fellow Academically-challenged Academic!

Barish-Estranza SecUnits and Their Fate

Since I have compiled the list of SecUnits and their fate from All Systems Red (https://www.tumblr.com/imitationgame77/781972975393128448/secunits-in-asr-and-their-fate?source=share), I thought I might as well make a list of Barish-Estranza units.

In Network Effect, we find that Barish-Estranza had sent two ships, an explorer and a supply transport. Having established contact with Barish-Estranza Supervisor Leonide, Murderbot tries to establish the presence or absence of SecUnits on her transport. It gets Amina to ask Eletra, a B-E human aboard ART, who says there are 3 SecUnits aboard the explorer but none on the supply transport.

Later, Murderbot finds one of them dead on the colony’s station dock, while 2.0 finds one whose head had been blown off, and another one who was standing motionless. The subsequent story reveals as follows:

B-E SecUnit1 and 2 disembarked at the dock with the humans. Unit1 returned to the explorer, but Unit 2 was ordered to stand down and left at the dock without its supervisor, resulting in its being killed by its governor module. B-E SecUnit1 aboard the explorer manages to send an emergency message to the supply transport’s SecSystem, allowing them to flee. Fight ensued on the explorer where B-E Unit1 was killed while Unit3 was ordered to stand down.

Murderbot 2.0 gives a code bundle to B-E SecUnit3 which uses it to free itself and offers assistance. Later it becomes a free unit, calling itself Three.

In System Collapse, we find that a new Barish-Estranza explorer had arrived shortly after the Preservation responder had. At first, they all knew that the explorer brought at least three SecUnits.

We get to see the first new B-E Unit (designated B-E Unit1 by MB) when it appears with Sub-Supervisor Dellcourt and shoots the ag-bot while it was mid-air, intending to land on MB. It was such a dangerous way to kill the bot, endangering MB that MB wonders if it had identified MB as a SecUnit. It was armed with a non-standard medium-distance projectile weapon that could take down ag-bots.

We don’t hear it mentioned again later, and while it’s possible that it reappears as another SecUnit later, I somehow don’t think that is the case. This Unit’s role was probably to protect Dellcourt and kills any bots infected with alien codes.

Later, in Chapter Five, when MB, ART-drone, Ratthi, Iris and Tarik are seeking contact with a separatist colonist hidden in the partially pre-CR structure in the signal blackout zone, they find that a group of Barish-Estranza had beaten them to it. They had come in a shuttle larger than ART’s shuttle, consisting of Supervisor Leonide and 6 armed humans that come into the structure, 3 guarding the shuttle and 2 SecUnits (later designated HostileSecUnit1 and HostileSecUnit2). One of the humans remaining in the shuttle has multiple interfaces, acting as an unusual augmented human HubSystem, controlling the SecUnits.

When Leonide’s plan to manipulate the separatists to sign the contract failed due to information provided by MB and ART’s team skilfully, her subordinates (Adelsen, Beatrix and Huang) suddenly turn against her. HostileSecUnit1 runs in after Leonide had been shot by her subordinates under that command of Adelsen.

I climbed off the B-E unit. Its helmet turned to track me. It didn’t have any drones, which was unfortunate. I really wanted more drones. “Iris, tell Adelsen to say, ‘Manual operation engage: shutdown delay restart’ and to add his command initiate. Leonide can tell us if he uses the wrong code.”

Adelsen reluctantly obeys and HostileSecUnit1 is shut down with delayed restart.

However, HostileSecUnit2 was already deployed and in hot pursuit, chasing MB, Iris, and Leonide into a small room and nearly gets inside. MB manages to shut the hatch and then shoots the SecUnits fingers off which were wrapped around the hatch lip.

With assistance from AdaCol2 and ART-drone, MB manages to hack the link between the B-E augmented human HubSystem and their SecUnits. MB sends “Stand down, cancel all current orders” command to HostileSecUnit2 via its governor module.

Then,

I could have destroyed HostileSecUnit2’s governor module. Also HostileSecUnit1’s governor module; it had restarted back in the meeting room and was stuck in standby mode waiting for new orders.

I took the file bundle 2.0 had given Three, and the code to hack the governor module, and buried it in both SecUnits’ archives.

With both HostileSecUnits from Leonide’s shuttle down, MB continues to try to get the humans back to ART’s shuttle. However, Barish-Estranza had sent yet another shuttle, bigger and armed, with 9 humans presumably as the backup. Whether or not they had brought additional SecUnits was unknown at first, but while MB was guiding Iris, Tarik and Leonide through the pitch-black hanger back to ART’s shuttle, it senses their presence.

MB gets the humans to run for a platform with an old pseudo-hopper atop. The invisible (new) HostileSecUnit1 tries to chase them, causing it make noise on the floor, giving MB its location. MB jumps on it and they fight, while a second Unit (new HostileSecUnit2) runs in to attack the humans. ART-drone drops through the gap in the overhead hatch before it could kill them.

I felt HostileSecUnit1 go into shutdown mode. It wasn’t dead, it was just catastrophically damaged. (I know, who isn’t?) Shutdown would conserve resources until it was retrieved. (If it was.) I wanted to shove it off me, but I had to pry what was left of my hand out of its neck first.

HostileSecUnit2 didn’t have a chance to shut down. When ART-drone let go, it fell into pieces.

Then, we get to see one of the HostileSecUnits from the first shuttle (Leonide’s).

There was another SecUnit ten meters away, just standing there.

Then the SecUnit said, “They’re coming. You have to go.”

This is one of the two you gave the code to, ART-drone said. It’s disabled its governor module. The SecUnit’s voice was different from Three’s. A different tissue batch, maybe. It didn’t trust me enough for a feed connection. That was mutual. Then I surprised the shit out of myself and said, “Come with us.”

It stepped back. “They don’t know.”

They didn’t know about it. It was going to do what I had done, pretend to keep doing its job.

It added, “You need to go. They’re two minutes out.”

Since MB didn’t notice any missing fingers, it might have been HostileSecUnit1 that they left in the meeting place. Since MB was not in a state to notice details by this point, it could also have been HostileSecUnit2. We don’t know for sure, but we know that at least one more B-E SecUnit had managed to free itself of its governor module and then used its new free status to help MB and its humans!

To recap the fate of B-E SecUnits:

[Network Effect]

B-E SecUnit1 – killed on the explorer with its head blown off

B-E SecUnit2 – killed by its governor module by being left on the station dock

B-E SecUnit3 (aka Three) – given codes by 2.0 to free itself and becomes an ally

[System Collapse]

B-E Unit1 – probably still with DellCourt, busting ag-bots

HostileSecUnit1 – shutdown with delayed restart, given the codes to free itself

HostileSecUnit2 – loses 3 fingers but survives. Also receives the codes

[One of these two uses the codes to free itself and helps MB]

New HostileSecUnit1 – shutdown but no codes given

New HostileSecUnit2 – killed by ART-drone, taken apart into pieces

-----

A few additional observations:

Barish-Estranza uses their own proprietary SecUnits

B-E Units seem to be deployed in pairs/groups and the units are allowed to communicate among themselves to some extent

B-E uses augmented humans with special implants to control their SecUnits (at least sometimes?), acting like a weird human HubSystem

Murderbot still does not entirely trust other SecUnits with or without their governor module, but shows more sympathetic attitude towards them, trying to find the way not to kill them.

I mean.

Oscar Santasusagna

Oscar Santasusagna - Rites of Passage (2021)

Oh wow

Special Effects (1984)

my one wish for the murderbot series is I want b-roll of ratthi totally reevaluating his relationship to all machines ever

like I want murderbot in its pod panicking about getting treated like a person and then we cut to ratthi gently asking like, a space roomba if it's comfortable and if it has enough food because you don't know, gurathin!

An Optometrist of Amethyst and Overcast

Bank of Sapphire Cold?

“Andrew kissed him like this was a fight with their lives on the line, like his world stopped and started with Neil's mouth.”

The Cool Down

Study uncovers surprising fact about wildflowers in urban areas: 'No difference … between the meadow types'

Researchers found that small patches of wildflowers can foster the same biodiversity as entire meadows.

A caveat to this study: the researchers were primarily looking at insect pollinator biodiversity. Planting a few native wildflowers in your garden will not suddenly cause unusual megafauna from the surrounding hinterlands to crowd onto your porch.

That being said, this study backs up Douglas Tallamy's optimistic vision of Homegrown National Park, which calls for people in communities of all sizes to dedicate some of their yard (or porch or balcony) to native plants. This creates a patchwork of microhabitats that can support more mobile insect life and other small beings, which is particularly crucial in areas where habitat fragmentation is severe. This patchwork can create migration corridors, at least for smaller, very mobile species, between larger areas of habitat that were previously cut off from each other.

It may not seem like much to have a few pots of native flowers on your tiny little balcony compared to someone who can rewild acres of land, but it makes more of a difference than you may realize. You may just be creating a place where a pollinating insect flying by can get some nectar, or lay her eggs. Moreover, by planting native species you're showing your neighbors these plants can be just as beautiful as non-native ornamentals, and they may follow suit.

In a time when habitat loss is the single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction, every bit of native habitat restored makes a difference.

tumblr discourse after 13 years on this fucking website

For my kids, who refuse haircuts and want masc/nonbinary looks.

Some long hair ideas for TransMascs!!

Inclusive of all hair-types.

(If your hair is pin-straight, I'd recommend using some kind of sea-salt spray and scrunching it up in the mornings to give it more volume, so it gets wavy. That's how I do it, at least. If you don't wanna make it wavy you could always just go the Penguinz0 route, but this is more about specific styles rather than laying it flat on your head. Remember, Pinterest is your best friend!)

These will be separated sections by hair-type, but protective styles will be in a separate category from 3 or 4-type, simply because I know some people have sensory issues and prefer to keep their hair loose so I wanna have more options for everyone here :)

1A - 1C

2A - 2C

3A - 3C

4A - 4C

Protective

Oh no. Guys. Don’t do this. Don’t be a dick.

OH AND ANOTHER THING

if you downplay and minimize trans mens issues like this:

Then you are being fucking deliberately transphobic. Fucking stop saying this shit.

Trans men have the HIGHEST rates of suicide and depression.

Trans men have the HIGHEST rates of having experienced sexual assault.

TREAT US LIKE WE ARE IMPORTANT. TREAT US LIKE WE MATTER. WE ARE A PART OF THE QUEER COMMUNITY AND WE ARE SUFFERING.