Still In Progress. ADHD Mom Of Neurodivergent Kids Here. My Executive Function Is Nonexistent.

Omg.

Activists did this yesterday (Tesla factory, Berlin):

(original post on bluesky)

Not a lot of original content here, if any.

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.

“Sit down and shut up, men don’t have oppression to speak on, so men speaking on their problems is always and in every circumstance speaking over women/in opposition of feminism”

is just an extension of

“sit down and shut up, men are supposed to be stoic about their problems”

from toxic masculinity,

but this time dressed up dressed up in twisted-pro-feminism reasoning that doesn’t actually address the underlying problem with the attitude of societal repression of men’s emotions and discussions of things by which they’re negatively affected (be that by oppression or not).

There is still value in understanding the darkness and the dirt.

Yes. Preach! If I can’t love my deeply fucked up fictional and RL historical characters, what is even the point of reading?

some ppl thought that adding black ppl to iwtv meant they were gonna "wokeify" anne rice and the bigots got mad at that mere promise while the leftists with poor media comprehension got mad at the failure to fulfill it but. anne rice works cannot be wokeified. she wrote about horrible lil gremlins with these nasty lil disrespectful unorthodox kinks lol. you will find sweeping romances in there and 0 of them healthy. the optics are bad, bad, bad! she would never get a publishing deal today because one of her characters would psychologically abuse the other one, and there wouldn't even be an after school special moment in the book where someone mentions the word "gaslight"!

the amc iwtv creators did not set out to distance themselves from the atrocities anne rice wrote, they set out to lean into them! to get closer, uglier, deeper in the dirt! how could you not recognize this from the very first episode when instead of making louis a white plantation owner they made him come from a black family who enslaved black ppl for capital gain and didn't feel real bad about it! perverse situation from the get go. you've recognized the ways in which the characters are evil and can be morally improved? congrats on step 1! step 2 is knowing these stories are not really interested in doing that. now you can finally begin to use your critical thinking as intended to ask: if these stories are not morality plays, what are they for? what do they say? well. great questions, now we're talking!

have your intersectional readings but kill the dichotomy, seek the nuance, bask in a narrative layered and baked in the complex stench of humanity! there is still value in understanding the darkness and the dirt. and sometimes when everyone's a murderer in your sandbox we can bury the word "problematic" and just have some fun ✌️🏽

Reblogging for *ahem* posterity.

they forcefemming luigi so straight men will be incentivized to learn about why the us healthcare system is broken

Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost

The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.

The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.

The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.

The “get stuff done while you wait” method.

The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.

The “break the task into smaller steps” method.

The “treat yourself like a pet” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.

The “put on a persona” method.

The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.

The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.

The “wait for a trigger” method.

The “do it for your future self” method.

The “might as well” method.

The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.

The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.

The “make it easy” method.

The “junebugging” method.

The “just show up” method.

The “accept when you need help” method.

The “make it into a game” method.

The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.

The “trick yourself” method.

The “break it into even smaller steps” method.

The “let go of should” method.

The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.

The “fork theory” method.

The “effectivity over aesthetics” method.

I made a comic of one of my favorite Network Effect scenes!

This was so fun!! I love Murderbot!

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

desperately need a dude i can nickname “sweet elf,” who hasn’t slept in 3 days, is vegetarian, translates plato for fun, got kicked out of oxford at the age of 18 for penning the first pro-atheism work in the english language and mailing it to every bishop in england, distributes political pamphlets in handmade hot air balloons, hallucinates from stress, plays with paper boats and rocks while declaring these to be serious forms of scientific experimentation, hangs out with lord byron, casually writes some of the greatest poetry in the english language but then threatens to quit constantly because he’s not famous yet, is convinced he is dying of consumption despite no proof, blows things up with gunpowder unprovoked, and is addicted to sailing as fast as possible while refusing to learn how to swim.