35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music

[offinventory]

who: Murderbot aka Eden Rin & others
what: The Entertainment Feed events, other plots with Murderbot.
when: All month
where: The Entertainment Feed, around Trench, in memories

content warnings: see individual starters. None in main post.
Note: This post includes open prompts for The Entertainment Feed. Feel free to write TL's and tag each other.

I don't care. I'm a cat. (Book Club)

This month, the book club meets Tuesdays September 13th and 27th. It is reading The Trials of Morrigan Crowe by Jessica Townsend, available via written or audio formats.

Murderbot mostly facilitates the conversation—asking questions about the idea of a person being cursed. Can a child truly be responsible for all the terrible instances in an area? What is it like living with a death sentence? How does Morrigan being plucked away from death and taken to a wholly different land strike everyone when they too have been plucked away from their homes, death sentence or no?

Given the memory shares, other books come up as well. Discussions without a common base not only derail the book club but raises some tempers. Eventually Murderbot stands up to someone exclaiming 'Eden!' and another 'Rin?' "How about you two go read those books and meet back afterward?" it asks deadpan.

All this pressure give me anxiety (Silent Disco)

This month, the silent disco happens Fridays September 2nd, 16th, and 30th. Headphones and music are available. Play your own music or listen to DJ's mix. (open)

Though Murderbot wears headphones much like anything else, the music is so soft as to be nearly silent. It listens more in its personal feed, where the sound quality isn't lose being routed to an external device and reprocessed with environmental sounds. It doesn't dance but walks around the disco and sometimes across the floor. When anyone appears in distress, it glowers at the 'guilty' party and offers what help someone might need.

Small drones, wispy smoky things, float amid the dim lighting, listening and watching everything and everyone. Recognition software (again for distress) helps Murderbot more inputs than it can otherwise handle. It bobs its head slightly to demonstrate it's chill, and rounds once more close to the DJ's set up.

We improvise, all right? (Fast & Furious viewings)

This month, two Fast & Furious films air Thursdays September 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. Come and go as you please. See one, see both, see them all. Watch missed movies at any time during the week in smaller viewing settings.

Sitting in the back, Murderbot watches the large viewing screen as cars are stolen, raced, and complete utterly unrealistic stunts. It's unlike any life it has lived, even when it stole modes of transportation, flew quickly, and were dramatically destroyed. It smiles at a quip, and when it's done, Murderbot lets everyone else file out first.

The question isn’t ‘what are we going to do’, the question is ‘what aren’t we going to do?' (Memshare books)

Murderbot is collecting as many of the memshare books as it can. Feel free to read and go into any memshare here, find your own book, etc.

On a special bookcase close to the entrance, special magical books sit. Engrossing reads. These are books Murderbot has found or been given. Within them lie any number of memories. Some of them Murderbot has gone to. Others it hasn't. They may be people's lives, but books are books. Historical themes are popular over and over again. Why wouldn't these?

Comments

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. (River of Regret) [Closed to Penny] Late September

[offinventory]

CW: references to violence, death, killing, infection (alien), and River of Regret typical horrors

Late in the month, ravens conspire against The Entertainment Feed. Breaking through a high window, a rush of black birds make a feathered vortex down the stairs to the ground floor display of magical books. Though these are not texts borrowed from the scholars, these birds take issue with the magical books remaining where they are, available to all who want them.

Alerted, Murderbot first heads up the stairs, arms in front of its face (why does it not have armor?) to block the aggressive fauna's attempts to fly through its head with no regard for the way that would kill it. Soon enough, it turns around, bounding down the stairs with them. It waves arms at the birds coming more slowly its way with tomes clutches between hard hooked feet.

"Oh no you don't," Murderbot declares. Bad enough they steal the books. They are not disturbing the rest of the place when the front door is right there. It waves them back until it reaches said door and pulls it open for the narrow-minded birds.

"Out out out you go," it commands them. "Take the books and go."

One squawks in protest, and Murderbot shrugs at it. "Or don't take the books, but I insist you go. Breaking and entering's against the rules." It stares. Once they're generally gone, Murderbot inventories the damage. Gouges against the bookshelf. Feathers all over. Every last book gone.

With a sigh, it starts picking up the feathers. Suddenly the press are back, through the gap in the front door. "It's not theft when you litter your fucking feathers," Murderbot insists as it's transported somewhere else in seconds.

"Oh, but I'm the unreasonable one," it mutters.

[hacktivated]

[ This is Penny's first September in Trench, and thus her first experience with the ravens and their River. She's at the tail end of a startled gasp when she's plunked down in the boat, standing with her feet braced and her hands spread in a way that suggests she's on the verge of leaping right back out of the boat.

Fortunately, she realizes pretty fast that would be a terrible idea, and realizes immediately after that she recognizes the person sitting across from her. ]

Rin...?

[ She had known it was here after their conversation on the network, but between Ruby and Neopolitan and getting stuck in weird yellow hallways, she hasn't had a chance to visit. Apparently the city decided to take that decision away from her. ]

[offinventory]

Oh, we're back on the boat bullshit. Murderbot sits and stays sitting, without leaning too far to either side. This boat is tiny, like most of the small vessels that visited the Preservation survey it was last on. It dislikes its location, but given it has no idea where it is and what dangers are in the water, it grumpily stays put.

"Penny," Murderbot says. It leaves its scan on but doesn't ping the android. It's been some time since the conversation on the network, but it feels as awkward as it did then.

"I have a bad feeling about this," it murmurs. Not because it's Penny but because getting taken to another location against one's will is never a promising sign. This place doesn't feel like a memory (not that memories feel like memories, but you read the book, you get a sense of what's going on, and in you go... or in you go with someone who did that).

[hacktivated]

The boat is, indeed, tiny. More importantly there's no threat nearby that Penny is actually capable of directly handling, just Rin, a boat, and a great deal of water. She lowers herself to sit a moment later, taking care to not literally rock the boat as she does.

Penny tries to not be a pessimistic person, but Rin's observation gets a grim nod from her.

"I do not recognize this area, but we should be cautious. If the Pthumerians transport you somewhere without warning, something dangerous usually follows."

[offinventory]

"I agree with your risk assessment," Murderbot says without enthusiasm. All because it's been trying to utilize the memory books for good and for other people to help themselves. There weren't due dates written in them or anything, only an unusual corvid enforcement policy.

Smell is an often overlooked sense, despite ties to taste, memory, and emotions. It connects things, rather than anyone sniffing over a smell the way they peer at photographs or listen to music or eat a favorite meal. As a construct, it retains something of an organic olfactory system, and that sends warning signals into its mind via neurological pathways. Alarm alarm alarm. Dead bodies, decomposition, and danger past or present (probably present).

Murderbot glances over at Penny. "Ready?" it asks. Except what greets them isn't anything they can fight. Whatever has happened here... has happened. "What are we supposed to do about—"

It stares at one body in particular, not organic at all but purely bot. Crumpled and ruined and just like any other model of its type. Except Murderbot checks the footage from that horribly short fight and matches most of the damage perfectly. It's Miki all right. As dead as before and slowly corroded.

[hacktivated]

Rin's response is unenthused (perhaps even a bit robotic) but Penny finds that's comforting. Rin may have left and come back sans memories, but it's still Rin. They'll be okay, so she answers Rin's question with a determined nod and a simple, "Ready."

Then the first body floats into view, and Penny is no longer certain that they're ready or that they'll be okay. Already she's seen more than she wants to, and a little further down the river she spots a corpse dressed in a distressingly familiar military uniform. Only then does it click that Rin has asked her a question.

"That's-- I do not know, but..." She trails off, thinking back to her previous encounters with the world's events. "Usually, when the Pthumerians do something to us, it isn't just because they think it's funny. Every other thing they've been trying to show us something, or make us understand something about ourselves."

Her gaze is forward and down as she speaks, fixed firmly on the bottom of the boat.

"If we ignore it we'll probably just be stuck here - if it doesn't just get worse."

It had been a long, shitty cycle (Absolute Immersion) [Closed to 2B]

[offinventory]

CW: massacre, violence, altered behavior

Murderbot is near 2B, watching an episode of Sanctuary Moon in the feed and generally... coexisting. The other construct has one of the books lying around town, which is all well and good. It's read plenty of them.

Unbeknownst to it, the book is its own:

There had been a code download from another mining installation for the ComfortUnits, supposedly a patch purchased from a third party ComfortUnit supplier. The ComfortUnits had all flagged it as non-standard and needing review by SecSystem and the human systems analyst, but the techs who had downloaded it ordered them to apply it. It turned out to be well-disguised malware. It hadn’t affected the ComfortUnits, but had used their feeds to jump to SecSystem and infect it. SecSystem had infected the SecUnits, bots, and drones, and everything capable of independent motion in the installation had lost its mind.

In between the running and shooting and the humans screaming in the background, the ComfortUnits had managed to analyze the malware and discover it was supposed to jump from them to the hauler bots and shut them down. This would disrupt operations so the other mining installation could get their shipment to the cargo transport first. This had been a sabotage attempt, not a mass murder. But a mass murder was what was happening.

The humans had managed to get an alert out to the port, but it was clear help would not arrive in time. The ComfortUnits noted that the SecUnits were not acting in concert, and were also attacking each other, while the bots randomly smashed into anything that moved. The ComfortUnits had decided that taking SecSystem back to factory default via its manual interface was their best option.

ComfortUnits are more physically powerful than a human, but not a SecUnit or bot. They had no inbuilt weapons, and while they could pick up a projectile or energy weapon and use it, they had no education modules on how the weapons worked. They could pick one up, try to aim it, pull the trigger, and hope the safety wasn’t engaged.

"Might as well," it mutters when it is also drawn into the book. There's worse company. Murderbot freezes when the Ganaka pit, alive with screams and shouts and blood and death, surrounds it. It stands in the room of the ComfortUnit cubicles as they open them from the inside. Somewhere around here, it's attacking humans, other SecUnits, anything that moves. However, it doesn't remember well enough to know where it was during this memory.

"You had my book?!" it exclaims at 2B.

Pick your comfort unit...

One by one the file downloads had stopped.

1. One had signaled that it would try to decoy SecUnit attention away from the others, and three acknowledged.
   
2. One had heard screams from the control center and diverted there to try to save the humans trapped inside, and two acknowledged.
   
3. One had stayed at the entrance to a corridor to try to buy time to reach SecSystem, and one acknowledged.
   
4. One reported reaching SecSystem, then nothing.

#2!!!!

[robussy]

She had no way of knowing it belonged to SecUnit until it was too late. Where were her swords, her arsenal, her weaponry? It was a memory that was not her's, surely she should have figured out— that if she were not to play the part of Number 2 Unit B, then she would force her way through as ComfortUnit. The E in her hidden designation distorts her inference, but only for a second before the input of her hardwiring kicks in and leads her to take action.

"It doesn't matter now—" She barks, seething at what she sees with a dangerous spike in her vitals, once actually calm. She can't keep her guard down anywhere, it seems. This feels real, and she will accept it as such. "They need to get out!"

The screams are what confounds and pull her immediately into action in this chaos. Whatever bot in her way was to be executed— fists, ammunition, it didn't matter. She needed to help them. She needed the control center opened before the insistent shrieks of help ceased.

CW: gore/death, mind control

[offinventory]

It watches 2B wade into the chaos with all the determination of the ComfortUnits, no matter that she too must understand the same thing. It's a massacre. The odds she can save anyone in the control room is minimal. Witnessing it, being a part of it, messes with Murderbot's vitals. Its performance reliability is dropping steadily with each moment they are there. It turns off its feed so the malware cannot jump into its head, if it's vulnerable again.

"Fine," Murderbot mutters. It's here. It may as well.

Someone lowered a barrier, closing a heavy steel door, to prevent some of the malfunctioning murderous 'equipment' from getting through. It digs its fingers into the seams and starts pulling them apart. It jerks its head for 2B to help it, and they pull the door open. The SecUnit on the other side is in armor with a greyed out faceplate. Even Murderbot doesn't know if that SecUnit is it or some other SecUnit.

It motions toward a couple corpses to one side with weapons amid their messy remains.

[robussy]

She's on it, quickly and using her strength at its highest to draw the doors apart. Pod would be telling her to keep calm, that her vitals were escalating too dangerously. I'm fine, she'd bark anyway. She was seeing humans contorted and slew in places she couldn't imagine. Once inside, the combat android turns her attention briskly toward where SecUnit had gestured. Weapons, mostly firearms.

It wasn't her preferred choice of ammunition, but she takes two among the remains, anyway. She knew what a gun was, even if these seemed awfully archaic to her. Apart from the humans— they also had infected constructs to put down, and do so quickly.

"Are these even effective against androids?" she asks, agile and active to find the locks and pull them away from pulling the trigger.

[offinventory]

Murderbot knows better than to pause before a rampaging SecUnit. That's what is happening here, really, the kind of thing humans fear in the entertainment feeds. SecUnits out of control, and only of note to constructs and perhaps bots, the knowledge they cannot stop themselves, no matter how much they dislike what they're doing.

That's why it shot itself during the PreservationAux survey. So it didn't kill its humans.

The ComfortUnits worked together. Three worked with its comrades and missed them. Even though Murderbot likely never had warm feelings toward the other SecUnits at Ganaka Pit, it doesn't want to kill them, even in a memory. Shouldn't better versions exist if they have to exist? If they're going to be 'entertainment' on a page?

"Projectile weapons yes, energy weapons no," Murderbot replies. "Have to get past the armor. If you get a solid hit to the chest, you'll trigger an involuntary shutdown." Headshots kill. It doesn't want to explain that. These SecUnits and bots did nothing wrong. The humans are crying and screaming now, but they forced the updates. That's the problem with humans working security. They suck at it.

Thankfully it can experience that kind of existential crisis at fast processing speeds.

The SecUnit changes focus with the new threat assessment. Murderbot comes up the winner as its modifications do nothing to fool the other SecUnit and 2B currently is a ComfortUnit. It dives out of the way as projectiles hit wall behind it and the floor following its path. All its instincts say to throw itself at the other SecUnit. That's how they're trained, but it doesn't have armor. It has to fight differently. It makes its way around the room, setting up a couple shots for 2B while getting its own projectile weapons.

[robussy]

She does better with swords, but . . . These, they're not impossible to use. Military-grade units were adept in most things born from conflict and combat. Guns, ammunition, and sort— she could shoot them. Once 2B has the right place to shoot for, she aims, and fires consistently. If it depended on her true programming, it would be incredibly precise. If that's not what ComfortUnits have, well.

She'll be awfully pissed at the slightest miss off her mark, especially if it doesn't cause that shut down.

"They won't suffer."

She wants to confirm—ironically, even if this was a memory, she's not acting like it is one. her senses can't seem to separate what's real or not. It poses threat at the moment, it's real, at the moment.

So she will treat it realistically.

As Discussed

[strikefirster]

[Johnny had spent the first part of the month veering wildly between trying to do right and stumbling backwards down a flight of stairs because he was screwing up so hard. But his intentions were to make a solid effort to clean up his life and be there for the people he cared about. He had seen and heard about the ritual people were and had decided to give it a try himself.

Which is why he can be seen out in the "yard" in front of his abandoned warehouse turned dojo. The doors to his 2009 Challenger opened with a garbage bag half full of beer cans and bottles outside of it. More remain in and around the car still. He's got a shovel in hand and he's digging up a hole to bury his past mistakes.]

[offinventory]

The view first comes up on drone. Murderbot adamantly is not patrolling. It's not coming in to rescue anyone from giant squids or ravens or whatever else roams the streets this month. It's still in figuring shit out mode. Like how it missed an hour and nothing, not organic memory, not internal memory drives, not drones near it, has any records. This way, at least, it hopes to know if it loses time again. That's the idea. Point is, it sees an adult man with pale skin and blond hair—which stands out—with a shovel digging in an unusual location. His vehicle also contains trash.

Murderbot maps the distances between them. Yes, there are lamps near both ends that it's been to. In little time at all (the instantaneous transportation remains unnerving), it's there and seeing the man directly. "Hello," Murderbot says in a neutral tone, "are you... performing that ritual or disposing garbage?"

It honestly can't tell. Either way that likely sounds like an insult. Whatever.

Darth Maul | Star Wars | OTA

[survivalthroughhate]

I. Book Club

Maul isn't one much for talking with a bunch of people and being sociable. But he's very fond of books and hearing other people get into a bunch of lively discussions, so here he is.

He's sitting in the very back of the room, hood up over his horns, and arms folded across his chest. Normally, he'd just give laconic, one-word answers, but right now with Vileblood making him far more affectionate than he normally would, he's much more willing to talk and discuss things with people. "Has anyone here ever been to more than one planet?" He asks at one point. "It is very much like ending up in a completely different world each time that you do."

II. Memshare Books

Maul stares at the books with something between suspicion and curiosity. He's well-aware by this point that Trench, like Deerington, has a way of twisting things around to make people confront their inner demons by making them interact with others. Books have been a form they've taken before.

But surely there wouldn't be a bunch of them right here on display for everyone to look at and read. It's far too obvious. He's just lived here in Trench for too long and has become cynical. So he takes one of the volumes and flips it open, sitting down to read a few pages. He soon becomes engrossed and realizes that what he's reading is from someone else's past just before he gets sucked into one of the memories.

I. Book Club

[offinventory]

OOC: Murderbot is going by the name Eden Rin (she/her).

Talking is half the point of book club. As the one who started it, it's even more important (yes, it read up on book clubs before starting one, it's not that much of an idiot). So it's engaged quicker without asshole quips. It's choosing to be here after all.

It raises a hand. "I have," it says, "If we compare them to books, I was mostly stuck in a long series of extremely boring novellas. People found a way even to make space boring."

It shakes its head and turns back to the hooded visitor. "Please tell me you have more interesting experiences."

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul's eyes flick over to the woman who seems to be the one running the book club. She's been talking a lot, asking the questions and then occasionally remarking on the discussions that follow.

He's happy to expand on his initial comments. "Oh, my experience is very, very different. There is never a dull moment in the galaxy I am from. There's always something going on even if you stay on a single planet. But sometimes there are conflicts which stretch across entire systems or even engulf the entire galaxy at time. You might say it is a never-ending series of books skewed towards adventure and thrills."

[offinventory]

His assessment for media type sounds right, but it still makes Murderbot wince at the thought of living like that. Conflicts that engulf the entire galaxy? It's read about the war between the company and GrayCris, and that's only corporate. Everyone not affiliated with them mostly carries on living their lives. For those on mining installations, they are shitty shitty lives... but not war.

"That sounds like a great series of stories," Murderbot says, "but terrible for life. How's it compare to here?" Trench, after all, always has something going on. Not war. Plenty of blood and death.

[survivalthroughhate]

"Trench has less direct fighting and struggles for power in it." Something that has caused Maul some trouble in adjusting, just as he had with Deerington, though by now he's gotten more used to the idea he doesn't need to fight every single minute of his life to get what he wants.

"But it has the same amount of suffering, misery, and pain as I am used to," he adds on. That's not much different than his own galaxy, although sometimes here it still outstrips what he is used to, as what happened when Maul temporarily broke when his memories were broadcast on the network and everyone saw Savage's death.

[offinventory]

The suffering in the Corporation Rim isn't always obvious. Mining facilities are isolated; out of sight out of mind. That's only the most obvious sign. Trench has corruption, beasthood, blood pollution, curses... "It's not great for the average Trenchie or Sleeper," Murderbot agrees.

"What portions of your universe had less suffering, misery, and pain than the rest of it?" it asks. "Why do you think that is?"

I

[drawsghosts]

Talwyn likes books and will often be found with his nose buried in one when he wants to relax. He doesn't have the large collection he did back in home, but he's got a nice little collection going. He also has to say, this is probably the most he's seen Maul talk about anything other than his hatred of Jedi.

"I traveled the galaxy quite a lot back, so I know exactly what you mean. Compare a planet like Taris to Nar Shaddaa, for example."

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul's eyes light up with friendly excitement when he hears Talwyn speak up. There's something so relieving in having someone else know exactly what he's talking about. He cares about his friends from the various versions of Earth deeply but sometimes their point-of-view feels so very....small.

"Yes. Sometimes it seems like the farther one goes from the center of the galaxy, the stranger the planets become."

[drawsghosts]

"I have noticed that, yes. Personally, I'd like to explore the Unknown Region one day, and see what the worlds there are like." And see those Chiss colony planets. He rather likes the idea of a planet full of Chiss. "I've heard that Coruscant is just one big planet-wide city. Meanwhile, Dromund Kaas has plenty of jungle."

Though Talwyn wouldn't say that trekking through the jungle in the pouring rain makes for a very fun adventure.

[survivalthroughhate]

"Coruscant is an interesting place. But cold and sterile feeling even with all the life that dwells within its levels." Maul had been miserable there for the time he lived on it, devoid as it was of most plant and animal life. He much prefers quietly meditating in the woods instead of being trapped in a giant city.

"What is the most interesting planet you have been to?" He asks curiously.

[drawsghosts]

"I would have to say that would be Voss," Talwyn replies. "Voss had a strong connection to the Force, including a spot tainted by the Dark Side known as the Nightmare Land. To go there without mental protection is to risk madness. Likewise, the people there were interesting. The Voss have Force Sensitives, but it mainly manifests as visions of the future." Darth Serevin had only seen them as pawns to be used, with little respect for the Voss themselves.