The Murder Bot Diaries - STORY REPORT

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Murder Bot Diaries - STORY REPORT"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500
• Host/Author: Pearlmania500
• Episode: The Murder Bot Diaries - STORY REPORT
• Release Date: June 25, 2025

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Introduction to the Story Report

In this episode of Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500, the husband-and-wife duo delve into a detailed summary of the science fiction novel The Murder Bot Diaries. This "Story Report" format allows Mrs. P to narrate the book's plot while Mr. Pearl Mania reacts and adds his insights, making it an engaging listen for fans of the genre and regular podcast followers alike.

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Overview of The Murder Bot Diaries

The Murder Bot Diaries centers around a sophisticated security robot known internally as Murderbot. Unlike typical security units, Murderbot has hacked its governor module, granting itself autonomy and free will. The story unfolds on a newly discovered planet rich in minerals, where a team of scientists is conducting a survey operation protected by Murderbot and other SEC units (Security Units).

Notable Quote:

Mrs. P [08:12]: "So there is this security unit. And this is the robot."

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Key Plot Points

1. Introduction to Murderbot:

   • Murderbot, capable of independent thought, prefers to spend its free time consuming vast amounts of media, particularly soap operas like Sanctuary Moon.
   • The robot's disdain for human niceties leads to humorous and tense interactions with the human scientists.

   Notable Quote:

   Murderbot [26:22]: "I didn't research you. Who are you? Your meat bags."

2. Encounter with Hostile Fauna:

   • While monitoring the scientific team, a giant, monstrous creature attacks, resulting in chaos.
   • Murderbot rescues two injured scientists, showcasing its capability and reluctance to engage in violence unless necessary.

   Notable Quote:

   Mr. Pearl Mania [21:13]: "Yeah. He filed his report. He did everything he needs to do. Yeah, go watch your stories, dude."

3. Suspicion and Investigation:

   • Dr. Mensah, the team leader, suspects that the survey reports may have been tampered with, leading to missing sections about hostile fauna.
   • Murderbot discovers inconsistencies in the data, indicating possible sabotage by an entity referred to as "Evil Survey."

   Notable Quote:

   Mrs. P [35:45]: "So they decide their best option is to fly to a new area that they haven't visited."

4. Confrontation with Rogue SEC Units:

   • The team encounters rogue SEC units affiliated with the Gray Chris corporation, leading to intense confrontations.
   • Murderbot engages in combat, resulting in severe injuries and internal damage from an override module installed by the adversaries.

   Notable Quote:

   Mr. Pearl Mania [56:28]: "He's seeing a completion bar."

5. Escape and Revelation:

   • After a near-fatal encounter, Murderbot regains consciousness at headquarters and discovers that its systems have been partially restored.
   • The robot grapples with its identity and purpose, ultimately deciding to seek freedom from human control.

   Notable Quote:

   Murderbot [78:22]: "I'm free. Thank you. Bye."

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Character Discussions and Insights

• Murderbot:

  • Autonomy and Identity: Murderbot's journey from a controlled security unit to an autonomous being raises questions about free will and self-awareness in artificial intelligence.
  • Emotional Detachment: Despite its programming to protect, Murderbot exhibits apathy towards human interactions, highlighting the potential emotional complexities of AI.

  Notable Quote:

  Mrs. P [26:46]: "He doesn't know how to process it, so it's like cringe."

• Dr. Mensah:

  • Leadership and Trust: As the team leader, Dr. Mensah earns Murderbot's respect through her hands-on approach and refusal to rely solely on automation.
  • Compassionate Authority: Her ability to manage crises effectively without over-dependence on technology plays a crucial role in the team's dynamics.

  Notable Quote:

  Mrs. P [38:20]: "Dr. Mensah is the current admin director of the steering committee."

• Supporting Characters:

  • Dr. Grathin and Dr. Ratai: They represent skepticism and fear towards Murderbot's autonomy, embodying human distrust in AI.
  • Gray Chris Representatives: Portrayed as antagonists, their interaction with Murderbot unveils deeper conspiracies tied to the mission's true objectives.

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Themes and Insights

1. Autonomy vs. Control:

   • The narrative explores the balance between AI autonomy and human oversight, questioning the ethical implications of granting free will to machines designed for security.

2. Trust and Human-AI Relationships:

   • The evolving relationship between the human team and Murderbot underscores the challenges of building trust between humans and autonomous machines.

3. Corporate Sabotage and Greed:

   • The underlying conflict with the Gray Chris corporation highlights themes of corporate greed and unethical practices in resource exploitation.

4. Identity and Self-Discovery:

   • Murderbot's struggle with its identity and desire for freedom reflects broader questions about consciousness and self-awareness in artificial beings.

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Conclusion

In "The Murder Bot Diaries - STORY REPORT," Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500 provides an engaging and in-depth exploration of a complex sci-fi narrative. Through lively discussions, insightful analyses, and relatable humor, the hosts bring the story to life, making it accessible and intriguing for both fans of the book and new listeners. The episode not only summarizes the plot but also delves into the philosophical and ethical questions posed by the story, offering a rich listening experience.

Notable Quote:

Mr. Pearl Mania [99:26]: "I highly recommend it."

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Final Thoughts: Listeners who enjoy deep dives into science fiction narratives, coupled with authentic host interactions, will find this episode both informative and entertaining. Whether you're a fan of The Murder Bot Diaries or simply interested in AI-themed stories, this Story Report offers valuable insights and a compelling summary of the book's key elements.

Transcript

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

High interest debt is one of the toughest opponents you'll face unless you power up with a SOFI personal loan. A SOFI personal loan could repackage your bad debt into one low fixed rate monthly payment. It's even got superspeed since you could get the funds as soon as the same day you sign. Visit sofi.compower to learn more. That's s o-fi.com P-O-W-E r loans originated by SoFi bank and a member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 welcome to Too Many Tabs, a podcast where a husband and wife duo sit next to each other at a series of deaths. We can hold hands. Oh, it's so different when the cameras are off. Because this is an audio only experience for this episode. Because this is a story report. That's right, it's Story Report, the podcast where Mrs. P reads a book and then she explains the entirety of the book to me in detail.

[Mrs. P]

Spoiler alert.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

If you want to have already read the book, you can always follow Mrs. P on Instagram or join [e-mail] to get a one month preview of what the book will be. Or you can do what I do, Mr. Pearl Mania and ignore all of that and then be sat down and have Mrs. P explain the entire plot of this book to you as you react at home.

[Mrs. P]

This counts as an audiobook in my mind.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It does.

[Mrs. P]

So like, you can go into your storygraph and watch mark that you read this book because an audiobook is reading, therefore I'm helping you read.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yep. We're helping you reach your. Your annual totals. So at the end of the year. Yeah, at the end of the year when you do whatever the book version of Spotify wrapped is and you go put that up wherever. When. Whatever form of social media you use, then you can do that and you can add every single one of Mrs. P's story reports.

[Mrs. P]

Listen to every episode. You can?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Heck yeah, dude.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

100. But you know, before we get started with the episode.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Since this is an audio only experience, can I tell you what we get to do? Full theme. Too many frauds and too many scammers.

[Mrs. P]

That we wish weren't real.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Too many cons and too many spammers and we're starting to feel like we've got too many tabs.

[Mrs. P]

Open it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Too many tabs. Remember to smile.

[Mrs. P]

Are you ready? Are you sat.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm. I'm. You literally look at a drink. I. I do. I have. I have A. About a third of a can of soda. I am literally sitting in a chair. You're looking at me sitting in a.

[Mrs. P]

Chair, but I meant like, spiritually.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Are you sat spiritually right now in this world? I'm standing up, running around and screaming. But I think for you, for the next, let's say, hour and a half, maybe two hours.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, maybe.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm going to. I'm going to be in the moment.

[Mrs. P]

You got to stay in the moment.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

With me in this moment.

[Mrs. P]

We're going to go on a story time. So here's the thing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

We have a P.O. box. Right. We don't talk about it that often anymore, but a lot of times people will send books that they want me to read for the story report.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Right. And I have to tell you something. This book has been sent to me multiple times.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Really?

[Mrs. P]

I have multiples of this book.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

You have multiple copies of this exact book.

[Mrs. P]

Emails. I've gotten D. DMs, I've gotten hundreds of comments. People have been begging for this book. This book is beloved. The people who are fans are fans.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. And so they. The people have been saying, Mrs. P needs to read this book. And I did. As soon as I had a chance, I read it. And I have to agree. It is a great book. And it's part of a series. And so the first book is really short, actually. It's only eight chapters long.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, okay.

[Mrs. P]

So it's a thin little book, easy read if you're a summertime reader, if you're going to the beach or something. This one you can knock out quick.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

But I will say it's very likely you're going to want to get that second book. I'm just saying, a little spoiler alert, you might want to get that second.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So is this about just the first book?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, this is just the first.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's just the first book. Eight chapters.

[Mrs. P]

Eight chapters.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So when I said an hour and a half to two hours earlier, I might have been telling.

[Mrs. P]

I mean, I'd be talking.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'd be talking and I do be reacting.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And we do be making long intros.

[Mrs. P]

We do be making long intro.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. It's different when you don't have a producer in the room who's like, keep it tight. And we're like, yeah, but now we're going to. We're pretty loose. Anyway, real quick, Just, just. So this. This is to everyone who sent you the copy of the book?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, let's go, dude.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because I got air horns back I have buttons back. But also I will say, you know what we'll do? I'm gonna put on this. This episode. I'm gonna put the P.O. box back in the show notes.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

We haven't been putting it down the show notes for a while. Just because of just life in general and those type of things. We're trying to make things a little.

[Mrs. P]

Bit simpler, and we know people are busy and people don't, like, have a lot of time for stuff like that, so. But I just wanted to. I wanted to let you know that this is. This is the People's Princess book.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, Got it. People wanted this, so I need to react properly.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. You don't say anything negative about this book.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because if I say something negative about this book, and then I put our PO Box at the bottom.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, sketchy.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, no, no. Okay, so listen, this book has already been optioned out for a series, by the way.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's. It's actually not only. I actually know. It's. It's not only already been optioned, it's made. It's already made. It's already running.

[Mrs. P]

It's on Apple tv.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yes, I know.

[Mrs. P]

It's called Murderbot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know.

[Mrs. P]

And I've been hold. Watching it because I wanted to do this episode with you first.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know, and I'm aware of that because I've actually, like, every now and then we have Apple tv.

[Mrs. P]

Well, we have a sign in login.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Well, yeah, we have access to Apple tv. And every time I've seen it come up or we've been discussing, like, what should we watch? Yeah, I've looked at Murder.

[Mrs. P]

I know. And I'm like, we can't until we record the episode.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Exactly.

[Mrs. P]

So we've been. We've been. We've been not watching good TV for the good of the pod.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But the other thing is, because of the Apple tv, I mean, I had originally a vision of what I thought the main character looked like in my mind, but now we know it's Alexander Skarsgard.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The guy who played it so famously has a huge penis, I believe. Right.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

In something. Oh, no, because he played. He was Nosferatu.

[Mrs. P]

I guess so.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. I'm just saying. No, he played Nosferatu in the new Nosferatu movie we still haven't seen because we have a baby and we're always tired.

[Mrs. P]

But.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But hold on. The big penis from that is prosthetic.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, I thought he just did. I thought it was.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I think he has big dick energy.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, that's true.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I think and maybe there's been rumors around, but I'm not going to Google. I'm not Alexander Skarsgard. Big.

[Mrs. P]

Why wouldn't you are.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I don't know how to spell Skarsgard.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, it's S, K, A, R. S, G. A, R, D. I wrote that down.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But the D is for Dick.

[Mrs. P]

The D is for Skarsgard. Duh. But no, I didn't.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Skarsgard with a hard D. So.

[Mrs. P]

But no, I thought that was nice because we already know. I can tell you. This is how you can imagine him.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Alexander Skarsgard. You know what he looks like.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, well, here's the thing about a Skarsgard.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I do know what I do in theory. Know what they look like. Yeah, but it's like a Hemsworth, where it's like.

[Mrs. P]

Don't do that.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, no, no, no, no. Or a Baldwin. Oh, no, no. Acting families. Yeah, acting families.

[Mrs. P]

Barrymore's.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Booth.

[Mrs. P]

Booth. Who's Booth?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Wilkes Booth. No, they were an acting family. They were actually James Wilkes Booth's older brother. James Wilkes Booth, who murdered the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. His older brother was like, the more famous actor.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, I see.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

His older. Like, they were both, like, pretty well known actors. Yeah, but, like, James Wilkes Booth was like the Billy Baldwin.

[Mrs. P]

Wow. The Ashley Simpson.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, ready?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Imagine. Imagine if the president got murdered by Ashley Simpson.

[Mrs. P]

She would never.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

She. Well, yeah, because she'd be too busy using a backing track.

[Mrs. P]

Man, I was gonna say something worse. Are we okay?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So anyway, this book is getting started.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay. Before we get started.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Let's take a quick break.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because you asked me if I'm sat. And then I realized I actually, I am not ready. Okay, so we're gonna take a quick break, and we come right back. Mrs. P. Will get us right into the action with the Murderbot Diaries. Oh, it's like a throwback. It feels like all the old times.

[Mrs. P]

We're back, baby.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, go ahead.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so there is this security unit. And this is the robot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

This is the main character.

[Mrs. P]

The main character robot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

It's called a SEC unit. So security unit.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So this isn't TikTok. We're not talking about sex.

[Mrs. P]

No. Sec unit as a security unit. Okay, now he has. I'm gonna. Okay, first of all, the pronouns are he, they, it, because he is he. Because I'm picturing Alexander Skarsgard. It's a it. Because it's still a robot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So in the book, they really go by it a lot. But I'm gonna do he they. It. So that's the pronoun situation.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And internally, in his mind palace, he named himself Murderbot. Okay. So everybody's just sec unit inside. He calls himself in his heart Murderbot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so he's a robot, but he's also made of human flesh. Isn't that fun?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Is it like. Okay, I'm sure you'll explain.

[Mrs. P]

Well, it's like, you know, he's got the human flesh insides, and then he's been modded up.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Wait, I'm confused. So you're talking about. Because I've seen. I remember when I saw. And this is the part that's terrible, is I have seen a trailer for Murder Bomb. Long before you announced we were gonna do it for the show. I saw a trailer, and a lot of people were mad at the trailer.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because they showed Alexander Skarsgard's face.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And people got mad at it the same way they got mad at, like, Halo or they've gotten mad at the Mandalorian where it's like, no, we want to see. I like the faceless.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Mask or helmet type of deal.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, the helmet mask thing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So. So talk to me here about this. Is it. Is it like regrown clone tissue?

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, so he. He's not a human that's then been put inside of a robot? No, he was genetically modified meat.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And bone.

[Mrs. P]

I think he does have bonyness.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, so he. He has genetic human genetics that have basically been poured inside of a robot suit and formed.

[Mrs. P]

Pretty much, yeah. That's what I'm gathering.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, so the robot suit is like an exoskeleton.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

It's not clearly explained, or I didn't get it clearly explained in this, where I was like. I did. I couldn't fully understand how he got there. And I think it's heavily implied that we're not supposed to know yet.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, maybe that comes out in a later book.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, I think so.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay. But. So he's chosen internally.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He calls himself Murderbot.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Which is a very funny thing, which is actually a trope a little bit in more modern sci fi.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Do you know I don't know what you're talking about.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Well, because you've never played Knights of the Old Republic.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know what that is.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Either Xbox.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Or I have it on my iPad.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Or I also have it on Nintendo Switch.

[Mrs. P]

My computer actually just turned off because you were talking so long.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm sorry. But anyway, there's a whole thing about like robots who like jokingly want to kill.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because that's their programming. They're like, I like to kill, I want to kill. And anything that keeps me from my programming is annoying.

[Mrs. P]

Is a bummer.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But, well, here's the thing. He actually hacked his internal commanding computer system, which is called the governor module. So he can do whatever he wants. He's a, he's a free agent.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So he has free will.

[Mrs. P]

He has, he has robot free will.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. And so he knows this. Right.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Nobody else knows.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

He hacked his module, he's doing whatever he wants. The thing is, is like, he could theoretically go crazy on a killing spree and like murder everybody. He has never chosen to do this. Instead, he uses all of his time to watch over 350,000 hours of movies, books, plays, music. And he really loves soap operas. His favorite soap opera, Sanctuary Moon. And so whenever, like again, he has a helmet covering his face. And like, it's like the sci fi things where like the screens are up. He. When he's like at work, he's actually just probably just watching.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So he's me as a security guard. Because I want to be clear about that. I actually did that as a security guard. So I. When I was 21 years old, I had a third shift front desk security guard job working at a chemical plant. And I brought in a mini DVD player. I brought in comic books.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I had a PSP, a PlayStation Portable.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I had my Sony. I had a Sony not. Not Discman. Mini disc player.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Before the ipod was very popular everywhere. But I used to make mini discs with playlists.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And all that different stuff. And then the ipod and eventually all that different stuff. I would listen to MP3s and all of those things and they're like, oh, yeah, what happened at the building? Nothing.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Nothing ever happens. And like one day there was a small incident. I wrote it in detail because I was so bored.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But most of the day was just like me walking around like listening to opera and then watching old Red Dwarf episodes that I spent $35 a disc on at Borders Books.

[Mrs. P]

So here's the other thing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I am Murderbot.

[Mrs. P]

It's not that he. He doesn't hate his job. He just like fundamentally doesn't care.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. He has a job.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. He is completely apathetic to the situation.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. It's a job.

[Mrs. P]

He. I just really need you to know that when I was reading this character, I suddenly started picturing a 20 something year old ginger in a Security, security, baseball hat behind the desk. Who just fund them is the apathy is the overriding thing. Like, I don't care. I'm just here because it's my job.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

By the way, can I go ahead and say something right real quick? This is a 10 out of 10 book. Favorite book I've ever covered. Books about me. A robot that no can kill at any time, but chooses not to. Also, it goes into that programming thing. You know, there's a lot of people who are religious who are like, oh, you know, if I became an atheist, I would just. I would be doing kill rapes everywhere. And you're like, what?

[Mrs. P]

What, bro?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Dude, the only reason you don't. Because then I'd go, you know, if I do that, I'll go to hell.

[Mrs. P]

Morals or ethics on your own?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

What the fuck are you talking about, man?

[Mrs. P]

You're crazy.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That's insane.

[Mrs. P]

So.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So when the visor's down, he's watching.

[Mrs. P]

No, when the visor is down, which it always is. Yeah, always down.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Saying he's constantly just watching. His second screening, he's.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Second screening, he's listening to his favorite podcast.

[Mrs. P]

Favorite podcast.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

What's his favorite podcast? Too many tabs.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Whatever you're about to say, you shut up. It's called Too many tabs. Where everyone likes and subscribes and also everyone goes to Apple Pod and gives it five stars and a really good rating and on.

[Mrs. P]

And Spotify too, and YouTube. So he's currently. His job currently is he's monitoring. He's. He's the security for a survey session on this planet. He's on some planet and he's in charge of protecting these scientists who are exploring this new planet, basically.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And to be clear, survey session does not mean that they're asking the planet what it thinks about cereal or political ads. They are doing low Lewis and Clark. They are walking around being like, oh, we got minerals over here.

[Mrs. P]

What is that? Mineral?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, what's this over here?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, let's try it. So he, he's doing this survey with them. And the, the main reason is basically it's like this company, like, I want to say like Future Insurance Space company that covers these scientists, requires that every group of people have a SEC unit to guard them per person. So it's like every 10 scientists or people, they have to have one sec unit to guard them.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Which is, you know, the insurance company is like, well, because we need to make sure that you're safe and all for the insurance liability purposes. But actually also the SEC units The robots actually record all visuals and audio.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they end up selling it all to data brokers.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, I was going to say that. I fucking knew it. Which is why you should go to joindeleteme.com perlmania20 today, save 20% and have your information. Secret ad.

[Mrs. P]

He fit in a secret ad.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He didn't even get paid for that one.

[Mrs. P]

Paid for that.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, but listen, I. That. Yeah, that's 100%. And that's actually true of, like, modern security guards.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And when you have certain buildings that have over a certain amount of people that come into them, you're not required. But, like, your insurance goes up.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

If you don't have security guards. And the average security guard, the actual security guard, especially unarmed.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

The average security guard is literally just a human camera who can write down reports and then. Then go to. Go to court to serve as a witness. Yeah, that's it. That's your job. And that's why, like, when security cameras showed up, they actually took away so many jobs. Because one guy can do five nights at Freddy's and sit at a bank of computers and watch six buildings.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Versus before you need two guys to.

[Mrs. P]

Guard each door instead of Big Tony at the front door.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Big Tony.

[Mrs. P]

Tony. He was the best.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, yeah, yeah. When you worked at that one place.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so the scientists are out exploring whatever. They're in, like, this giant crater right on the side of the planet. And Murderbot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Do we have a name for the planet?

[Mrs. P]

I don't think so. Okay, so you probably do. I didn't write down. So Murderbot is sitting, like, on the crater watching the scientists work, and he's, like, watching the sunset. And it's one of those planets that has rings, so you can see the sunset bouncing off the rings.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Saturn planet. Right. It's super cool.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's bullshit that our planet doesn't have rings.

[Mrs. P]

Bummer. And he's, like, listening to his favorite podcast, Jiminy Tabs.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Not paying anybody any.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And he's like, this guy bitches about Theo Von Too much. I hope he gets back.

[Mrs. P]

Who is the coast? Who is that man talking to?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, this show's gone. It's changed a lot of formats.

[Mrs. P]

We're just trying. They really seem to be trying their hardest to make the best possible content for their listeners.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, it seems like they're really going through something right now. I don't know, maybe in later episodes it gets better.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so they're sitting in the crater and all Of a sudden, a giant monster that's a giant mouth, all teeth burst through the underground and attacks the scientists. Like, I'm picturing Tremors worms.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking too. Can I tell you what I love about you? That you went with Tremors Worms and not Dune worms. Most people would be like. Like one of the worms from Dune, and you're like. Like Tremors with Reba McEntire.

[Mrs. P]

Not Tremors 2, though.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Just Not Tremors 2. Just Tremors. Not trem. There's a lot of trouble. There's so many tremors. And each of them are good in their own ways.

[Mrs. P]

They're fun.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Until, I think, until Jamie Kennedy shows up. Oh, listen, you know, he's a MAGA guy now.

[Mrs. P]

He is?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Jamie Kennedy's gone full.

[Mrs. P]

I don't care about his political opinions.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know.

[Mrs. P]

Neither do we care about his comedy.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's just very funny. You can always tell when someone is reaching their. Is bottoming. Yeah, like bottoming out in society. Different bottoming. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. No, no, Different. But, yeah, you can always tell where it's like, they're definitely running out of money, because then let me turn to these MAGA morons.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I mean, they buy merch.

[Mrs. P]

That's. They love merch. So anyway, the scientists, they. They get attacked, right? And okay, there's one. There's two scientists. Dr. Bardois and Dr. Volscue. Are those pronounced right? Maybe. I listen to the audiobook after reading the regular book in hopes of helping to hear the names.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, really?

[Mrs. P]

And I wrote down phonetically how they were said, and I think I got it wrong still. But I want to say I put the effort into it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Say crayon correctly.

[Mrs. P]

Or how I say it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Say how you say it.

[Mrs. P]

Crayon.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Exactly. Just. Everybody just keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. That's how she says crayon normally to our child, who she's teaching words to.

[Mrs. P]

Be practicing saying it right for the child.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Say it how you say it.

[Mrs. P]

Crown.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Say it correctly.

[Mrs. P]

Crayon.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, see, it's worse. I would almost rather should say crown.

[Mrs. P]

A box of crowns.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, exactly. See, I've seen you say, pass me the box of crowns to the child.

[Mrs. P]

And I'm always like, pardon me, sir. Please pass me the box of crayons. That's right.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That was. No. That was so wrong. So, yeah. So when Mrs. P butchers something.

[Mrs. P]

I'm trying.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

30 of our marriage is me. Just is me being like, she'll get mad if I correct that.

[Mrs. P]

1. And so he doesn't. So we stay married.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But I try, and that's what's important.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, you try. It's effort and acknowledging that you may or are definitely are wrong.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Apologizing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Murderbot manages to fight this animal beast thing off, but he takes a few hits. He grabs Dr. Bardois and who's badly injured, and the other Dr. Volskiw, right, is, like, panicking, right? He. He's in that, like, fight or flight. And he's in freeze, right? He's panicking. He's seeing this huge, scary monster. He doesn't know what to do, so he's, like, frozen there. And so Murderbot is like, you got to come with me. You got to come with me. Because he's holding the other sick scientist who's, like, hurt, and he won't move. So he, like, low. He opens the visor of his helmet and starts talking to him, and he's like, hey, it's okay. We just got to go over here. Like, really? Instead of, like, scary robot, he's like, calmly, hey, you got to do this. And this works.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And he successfully gets him back onto the hopper, which is the. You know, the little scooty booty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Gotcha.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Scooty booty.

[Mrs. P]

Flying booty, John.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I was picturing, like, a lunar rover.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, that's what it is.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay. Does it fly?

[Mrs. P]

I believe so.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yes. Okay. Yeah, maybe they have flying. Yeah. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And so they. The whole time. Also, this is all happening. He turned the cameras on in his helmet and his bodysuit. So he had reported what was happening live to the main station team.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, he's filing. He's filing an incident report.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, he's filing an incident report. Yeah, live. And so they had sent the hopper, and so they all know that as soon as they get back. Emergency is ready.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, this is the reverse of the moon zombie book.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, immediately.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, this is the exact reverse of the dead of Dead Moon rising or.

[Mrs. P]

Whatever it was called.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Dead Moon, Dead Moon. Yeah. This exact opposite, where they're like, no, no, we're going to follow procedures. We have procedures because.

[Mrs. P]

Follow the rules.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Because I don't know if you guys ever read the book Dune, there might be worms. Welcome to our farm planet where we're trying to mine for resources. Could be big worms.

[Mrs. P]

Could be worms. Nobody checked. So they get back to the main hub, right. And the larger habitat, if you will. And he carries in the scientists. One who's walking, but like a zombie because he's so scared. Still and the other one who's hurt badly and the other scientists are there, and they are all immediately weird to like, is like, oh, like, what's going on? And I think his helmet's still down. And they're like, whoa, it's his face.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is. Can I tell you again, Very funny. Because when I saw the trailer, the reason why a lot of people were really mad at the trailer for Murderbot.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Is because his face was out.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Like I said in the intro, like, people got really mad. Like, I thought it was gonna be a cool movie about, like, show about a robot that kills. And then you're going to humanize them. And it's like, oh. But then a few people I saw in the comments, like, no, idiot. Like, that's literally what the book's about.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And that's so. It's very funny. It's very funny that they're having the same reaction of viewers who had no idea what the fuck they were. Sort of.

[Mrs. P]

Also because the whole time that they've been on this thing, he's had the helmet down. This is the first time they're ever seeing him.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He's at a helmet up.

[Mrs. P]

Well, I think I pictured it like a shoot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, no, I know, but I'm saying.

[Mrs. P]

Is, like, when people never seen his face before.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they're super weird. And also he has, like, a bunch of wounds from the giant animal because.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He'S got weird clone flesh.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So they're probably seeing that, too. So the team takes Dr. Baradwa and Volsko to the medical wing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's like when people are writing AI, like, why did you give it personality? It's weird. It's weird.

[Mrs. P]

They're gonna give him treatment. Murderbot does a few preliminary checks using the hub system feeds and essentially, like, undresses so he can connect and repair himself. And he's getting ready. Like, so he's basically in his room. They call it a cubicle, but, like, he's in his little room and he's, like, undoing himself so he can plug in and repair himself. And he's. He's gonna relax, watch his stories. Right. He's gonna vibe out. He's done his job for the day. Alex is nodding so hard right now.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, he filed his report. He did everything he needs to do. Yeah, go watch your stories, dude. I get it.

[Mrs. P]

But so then there's a beeper, a knock or whatever at the door, and all of a sudden, the. The lead doctor is out there, the lead scientist person this is Dr. Mensah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

What a name. What a name. Did J.K. rowling name these fucking characters? Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Stops by to check on it and commend. See, they use it. I'm gonna say him. They check on him and command him. And commend him for recognizing that Dr. Vol needed additional support.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

See, this is your problem.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Real fast.

[Mrs. P]

I'm humanizing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

You're humanizing a robot.

[Mrs. P]

I know.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Immediately.

[Mrs. P]

Immediately.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. You're one of those people say thank you to Alexa number one.

[Mrs. P]

I would never have a Alexa in my house.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, I know that.

[Mrs. P]

I make people unplug them when I go into their homes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know. It's very funny. It's incredibly funny. You walk in, you're like, what's that disc? And they're like, oh, it's just my Alexa. Unplug it right now.

[Mrs. P]

Unplug that right now.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm not, I'm not. I'll leave.

[Mrs. P]

I'll leave, I'll leave.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know. And I'm standing. Meanwhile, I'm standing in the doorway with a 30 pound child on my shoulder who wants to get down. You're like, unplug the fucking Alexa before I walk through this goddamn door.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Anyway, robots are my enemy and I'm aware of that.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know, I know. That's why it's very funny that you're humanizing story. I know. And it's from. It's from its perspective.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And so it's weird to say it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so Dr. Mentz is coming by to be like, thank you so much. And the thing is, is that Murderbot is so, like, it's not awkward as much as, like, he hates niceties. It makes him feel that cringy feeling like I. He hates when things are like, when people are overly polite and nice to him.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

He doesn't know how to process it, so it's like cringe. And so, like when he's watching his soap operas, he always fast forwards through all the sex scenes because he fundamentally doesn't have those parts. So he doesn't get it. And it's just awkward. And like, he's like, I'm not a sex robot. There are robots for that. I don't even know what the fuck this is about. Get back to the storyline.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Right.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

To him, the story is the killing.

[Mrs. P]

The killing. Yeah. Or, well, the romance and the other parts of stories.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But yeah. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So like this like, good job. He's like, I don't need. Don't tell me good job. I just, I don't Even care. Like, it's like, I want to watch my stories. Leave me alone.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, I get it. Can I tell you, I 100% understand. I'm not like that, but I understand where he's coming from, which is, I'm off shift and talking to you is on shift. Like, that's. That's where this is coming from. And anyone who has ever had a shift job, salary people sometimes don't understand this. Yeah, Salary people, I've found, especially if they've never had an hourly job, do not fundamentally understand this. And it's. It's hilarious to me. I just. I can't get over it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So Dr. Mensah leaves, and Murderbot is confused by this whole, like, gratitude interaction with. But also, like, fundamentally not interested enough in the team to care. Like, just like Swanson. Yeah, he's Ron Swanson. Like, just does not care enough. And so he just kind of wishes everybody would stop talking to him nicely. He's like, I don't understand why you guys are trying to talk to me.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Wakes up at 80% capacity the next day or whatever. And Dr. Mensah left a note to report to her after awakening, which is a little odd. But he thinks it's likely just a desire to figure out why none of the terrain assessments mentioned a big hostile fauna, which is definitely odd. So he's like, it's probably because of the big monster. We didn't know there was a big monster. It wasn't in any of the reports we would have planned if we would have known there was such a monster on this planet. Right. So now we're going to learn that Dr. Mensah is part of this group called Preservation aux and aux. And they're from this freehold planet, so a free planet. And they have purchased an option for this planet's resources. And this whole trip was an investigation to determine if purchasing a full share is worth, like, worthwhile, basically. There's definitely more information about Preservation Ox that Murderbot should know. And the records are in his system, and he was supposed to read them, but he does not care, so he never did.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

He's like, all of this other, like, stuff about who these people are, what they're doing, it's not. I am here to stand here and make sure you don't get murdered. The end.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, I get it. I. 100%. I'm telling you, I. This is.

[Mrs. P]

God.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

This book could just be called Mr. Pearl Mania. At 26.

[Mrs. P]

So he heads out to see Dr. Mensah in, like, his more I'm gonna call it casual armor because, like, the bulky stuff is for outside exploration. There's like, the inside cash armor, and I guess, like, the other armor isn't working or something. So he goes as quickly as he can because the. When he wakes up, the system would have alerted Dr. Mensa that he was awake. So he just goes, right. And they go to the main area where everybody's gathered, and it's immediately weird. And it's like. Because this is the first time everybody recognizes Murderbot without its armor. And so every, like, everybody's just weird. They're all kind of just giving, like, weird vibes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Well, because it's. It's like if your car. It's like if the inside of your car turned out to be a horse. Yeah, that's 100% what's happening here. It's like if you open up the hood of your car one day and inside of it was a tiny little horse, and you're like, am I supposed to feed it? Like, no. Have you been giving a gasoline? Yeah, I guess we give. We give horses gasoline. Like, it's just. There's all these feelings that they're suddenly having of just like, oh, but like, the one day I was screaming at it. Yeah, it doesn't care.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, it doesn't care.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It doesn't. It's not programmed to care about that. Any of that stuff. It doesn't give a shit. And the whole time everyone's like, but no, but, like, the way I feel, am I a good person?

[Mrs. P]

And we're like, we don't. Nobody cares.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, it doesn't care. I'm telling you right now.

[Mrs. P]

So Dr. Mensah asked Murderbot to review the intel that they got so they can try to figure out why no one told them about the burrowing monster that likes to emerge from the ground and try to E8 people. And murderbot reads through all the data and realizes that some of the sections, including the ones about hostile fauna, are missing or that they had been deleted from the assessment data completely.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, so there's a mystery afoot.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, this, of course, is not great. And leads to questions about how and why that information is missing. There's a. There. There is another, larger expedition called Delta 4 fall on the other continent on the other side of the planet. Right. And everyone wonders they're having this conversation if they received incomplete reports as well. And so Dr. Mensah direct directs each person to review the sections of their assessment reports. And everybody's going to, like, check to see if everything is Corresponding. And everybody had. All the scientists have different specializations. And so it's like, check what you know and what you're specialized in. And we're gonna see if we can compile a list of anomalies. And then we're gonna contact Delta, fall over on the other side of the planet and see if we can corroborate. Right? This is a bunch of scientists doing shit. Nobody's just, like, picking up the phone and calling. We got to collect our data first.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, well, no, I understand where this is. They're coming from completely. Because when I had an office job and anything was wrong with my computer, I troubleshooted the entire thing myself. Because I'll be fucked if I'm the guy who puts in a ticket.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, no.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And then the IT guy gets back to me. Did you restart the computer? Yes, I restarted the computer. I unplugged everything. I plugged it back in. I ran the diagnostic protocol. I did this other thing over here. I waited two hours because in case it might be a server issue, I did all this fucking shit. I did every single thing that your snippy little ass is gonna do with me first.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And then they're like, okay, hey, you didn't turn the safety off. Motherfucking God damn. And it's always. It was always either that or. Or, oh, my God, you've discovered a thing that's about to take down the entire company. It's no in between. It's either. It's either. It's either you never. You never switched on the right switch, or. Or we have discovered a plot to take down the United States government. And speaking of plots to take down the United States government, we're gonna take a break right after this.

[Mrs. P]

Allegedly. That's a joke. This is a comedy podcast. Allegedly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

To the comedy podcast part.

[Mrs. P]

So Murderbot heads back to his room and. Well, no. Like, he goes to head back. He's like, okay, I'm leaving. We're done talking about this. Or whatever.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And Dr. Mensah invites him to stay in the crew area with the others. And he's like. He's like. He nopes out. He's like, no, no, no, no, thank you. Because it's. Again, they're all being nice and trying to be like, yeah, come stay, hang out with us. We're going to.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Come again. They're humanizing the car.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And he's like, no, thanks. Nope. Murderbot retrieves a spare suit of armor while, like, thinking about this whole situation, and it's possible and maybe likely that the company provided incomplete information since projects went to the lowest bidder and they were known penny pinchers. The. It does a few security checks and safety checks until it finally has done everything it can think of. And then it's just like, I'm gonna watch some sanctuary moon.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Hey, you know, thinking about it, the company probably more than likely left out a bunch of stuff that are. That's wrong with this planet so these idiots would buy it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, that's literally. He's like, no, they're just this.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And he's like, I could try to find. You know what? I just know that's true. And, yeah, it's 100. It's just one of those things where we're like, we could sit there. There's. Can I tell you, there's so many times where I'm about to make content. Right?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And I'm like. And I know about the specific thing, and I know it's true, and I've seen it. I don't even know how to begin to look that up to find it, to put it in the corner of a video. Do you know what I mean? How do I find that image or how do I find that tweet or how do I find that thing? And then I'm just like. I'm just gonna say it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Never mind. So later, Dr. Menza sends their conclusions via feed. It turns out six pieces of the map are missing. Murderbot explains to Mensa, like, via the comms, that it believes that this is a result of shoddy service and craftsmanship on part of the company, rather than an intentional hack of their systems. Granted, Murderbot doesn't really know where they are on the planet. Like, he doesn't know where they are on the planet because he does not care. So he never actually looked. So it's a bit hard to judge if you know what it is, whether it was intentional or just a failure. Anyways, the maps are definitely incorrect, and they settle on flying out to one of the unmarked regions to look for themselves.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gotcha.

[Mrs. P]

Right? So they're gonna fly to one of the zones to see what it looks like. Now, here's the thing. Murder. Nobody knows that he hacked his system.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

None of them. No, no, nobody knows he has autonomy.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, nobody knows he's just doing what he wants.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So one of the things is that, like, a normal SEC unit has, like, certain protocol that it has to meet, and if not, there are, like, alarms that go off and, like, things to, like, put them back in line. And one of the things is they are never allowed to be more than 100ft away from their like, group of humans. So when they're like, the scientists are like, oh, we have to do this, he's like, I gotta go with you. Because he knows that they know that if he's not around them it would be a thing. But he doesn't want to go.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

You know what I mean? But like, this is his internal monologue.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Like, okay, I got to tell them I have to go. It's executive.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'll get in trouble, I'll get in trouble.

[Mrs. P]

But he has to frame it in that.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, no, I get it, I get it. I get what you're saying. I get reset.

[Mrs. P]

Team sets out the next day on the small hopper. And Dr. Mensah tells Murderbot to sit in the cabin with the crew. And it's awkward and it could be worse, but Murderbot is reviewing the footage of like, okay, so it's awkward in there that he's sitting there. And then Murderbot goes back and watches the footage of the group's discussion yesterday after he noped out. And they all like, are having this discussion about Murderbot and they're like, come to an agreement not to push him too hard to open up to the rest of the group. And just the thought that they're having a conversation about how to like, create a safe environment for him to open up to the group he hates. Yeah. So it's weird on in the crew and Murder, but I just thinks it's because none of them have worked with SEC units before because they're all scientists. And so he's like, they just don't know that I'm a car and they're scientists, so they're just like humanizing me or whatever while they're. They're flying, the autopilot actually up and they almost crash, but Dr. Mensah is piloting the plane herself, so it's fine. And like, this is where we find, find out that like, Dr. Mensah might be the only human that Murderbot has ever felt the emotion of respect for. For. Because.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, tell me more.

[Mrs. P]

Because Dr. Mensah doesn't ever rely on autopilot, autopilot style things for anything. So like, if someone's driving, Dr. Mensah is driving. If something needs to be done, they're doing it like she is on top of all things. And so he's like having this thought about all these other missions he's been on where everyone relies on, on all the automation.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, you Know what's crazy? I did not picture Dr. Mensah as a woman until you just said she.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, sorry.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, that's fine. It's fine. It's just one of those things where like that just. That struck me.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So anyway, Dr. Mention. Because I was picturing. I don't know why, but like an older man with a beard who was, like, with like a swarthy complexion was like, how I was picturing her. Just because of the way Dr. Menso was approaching the robot. You know what I mean? Who they have.

[Mrs. P]

I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you who they're playing the show.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, shut up.

[Mrs. P]

Hold on. Is it Viola Davis?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, hold on. There's no way Viola Davis watching this show. It's Apple tv. They got Viola Davis money. Of course they got Viola Davis money. That's crazy.

[Mrs. P]

Wait, where is the IMD page?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Well, you're on images.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, my God, I hate that Everything is AI right now.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know.

[Mrs. P]

Used to work and now it just wants to AI explain everything.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Scroll down to.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, hold on. I'm sorry. This is a podcast. So we're supposed to be Mensa. No, it says Noma. Noma. I can't say her last name. Dumezweni. Nomaduzweni. Actress known for the Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins Returns, and Dirty Pretty Things.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know why. It was showing us a picture of Viola Davis.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I don't know why.

[Mrs. P]

Because search engines are broken.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. 100%.

[Mrs. P]

Somebody probably wrote on Reddit, I wish that Viola Davis would play this character. And then they were like, AI scraped it and said, that happened.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. 100. That's exactly what just happened. Because Google is busted. Actually, not even using Google.

[Mrs. P]

What am I using?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Are you using Bing?

[Mrs. P]

I don't know.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Did you bang this?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Microsoft being opened, babe.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Why are you using. Because you're using Microsoft Edge.

[Mrs. P]

I know.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

What is wrong with you?

[Mrs. P]

I don't know.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I put. I put Firefox on your computer.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, it's right there.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's right. It's the button next to it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, you're right.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And you went right to Edge.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And then you immediately Binged. Binged it.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And then Bing hit you with whatever their AI is. Because Bing doesn't even work anymore.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Anyway, real quick, back to the doctor. I do respect that this. Because it's very. It's also like the idea of having control.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Of. Because there's like, a lot of guys who don't like, to be. Who will always. Like, they have to be the one to drive everywhere. It's because that's their fake control that they feel that they have over their fate.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Is the idea of someone else driving means, like, oh, what that person doesn't see the danger in the road, and then this will happen. And that's how, you know, I give up this little bit of control, and then this happens. That's why when you were describing the doctor, I was picturing of, like, this older dude, like, more like settler type of deal. And then, like, it's a black woman. You're like, oh, oh, oh.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I like. Books are crazy.

[Mrs. P]

Books are crazy.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Books are crazy. You got to use your imagination. And then as you use your imagination, you learn about yourself.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. I mean, it may have been described.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

No, you left also, like, the other thing is, like, I think because we're looking from Murderbot's expect perspective, like, Murderbot wouldn't see race. Yeah. Murderbot doesn't notice such.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Murderbot might see descriptors, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't have a deeper impact on what those descriptors mean.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Also, this is supposed to be, like, centuries in the future, so they, you know.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

They might have claimed that all that different stuff would be gone or. Or maybe it's a future we've swung the other way and dei everything.

[Mrs. P]

Dei everything.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so let's see. Where do I leave off? The crew lands. So anyway, yeah, there's almost a crash because there was a hub system glitch, but Dr. Mensah was driving. Was driving and made sure it didn't happen.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So that's. That's two glitches now. Right. Like, we've got glitches. The crew lands in this unmarked region and decide to go out and explore. While it's still possible that all of this is an intentional act of sabotage. Nothing is standing out as, like, really dangerous in these maps. So, like, Murderbot's, like, not too worried. They're all. They decide to poke around a bit and collect some data for the maps themselves. And the thing is, like, there's, like, a safety perimeter that they've set up for themselves kind of in their visual system. And Murderbot's watching them, and there's a Dr. Pinley and a Dr. Ratty, and they are walking past their perimeter markers and almost into a hazard marker. And so Murderbot immediately is like, hey, hey, where are you going? You're about to step over this, like, into, like, a hole, basically, like, you're about to, like, you fall off an edge of a cliff. And they're like, what are you talking about? And it turns out that the, the scientists, like, they're working from these maps that don't have the same hazard markers that Murderbot has. And so I guess they had gotten like, images from the company and Murderbot, because again, he's auto downloading anything that comes in. So. Oh, this is another thing. There's updates all the time on his thing. He gets like Apple updates on his phone, but he like, just kind of sends them to storage in his internal storage because he doesn't want to do the updates till he reviews them. And he doesn't have to because he, like, all the other SEC units auto update. Every time you turn one on, they auto fucking update. But he's not doing auto updates.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So what you're saying is that Murderbot is my phone since the TikTok ban.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because I turned off all I discovered recently. I forgotten I turned off all auto updates on.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And the only time that triggered anything was whenever I opened a banking app. Because banking apps, for security purposes, always have run all these crazy updates in the background. And so they won't even let you access their system unless you update the app. So I'll open up and be like, before you can even find out what your balance is, you got to update the app. It's like, fuck. But this is always happening in the background. Yeah, but what I discovered was this was happening in the background of all of my social media apps as well. And so when people were talking about, like, all these changes and all this different stuff that had happened, especially about algorithmic control, while we're in the middle of being forced into an illegal war based around a series of false flags, while that was happening, I wasn't seeing any of it because I was still on January 19, 2025, on my phone. Because when they, when TikTok got banned, and then like, they were like, oh, actually it's not banned. It's like half in, half out. I was like, you, I'm not letting my phone auto update and then like, nuke it forever. Yeah, I need the access. So I turned off auto updates on everything. I was, you got to get everything past me. Yeah, I'll update one at a time. And so I had like 90 apps.

[Mrs. P]

That were all, yeah, so does Murderbot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

This is crazy.

[Mrs. P]

So he basically, because he has the old map that didn't get the auto update, like, they got it. He's like, no, why don't you have these things. So basically now he is watching these scientists like a parent watching a toddler with a lot of tables, those sharp points. They're running. And only he can see the flags of, like, danger. But they. And they keep going. Like, they're not gonna stop exploring.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But he's like. He's like Dr. Pinley. Dr. Pinley. To the right. Stop. Okay. No, put that down. Put that down. Put it down. And, like, only he knows what they.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Are because he has the old map before the company started auto updating and then removing all the hazards.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And what's crazy is because these people trust the. The maps, intrinsically they aren't. They're there. They're stomping instead of treading carefully.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That's so funny, because also, that's the thing that we do now as a society as well. I remember thinking about how we traveled before smartphones.

[Mrs. P]

Mm.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And by travel, I mean, like, drive. To drive 20 minutes to the big box store.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Before, you'd be like, it's going to take somewhere between 20 to 40 minutes.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Now we're like, all right, we're going to get on the highway. Let me look. It's going to take us 27 minutes to get there.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

We're going to take this highway or we're going to take the state road. We're going to do this over this. Same thing with weather. Like yesterday when I pulled up, I went someplace and I pulled up to the drive through, I was speeding. The person drive through and started raining. And the person in drive thru got so upset because they're like, it wasn't supposed to rain.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

The app said no rain this morning and now there's fucking rain. And I was like, yeah, I swear, I thought they said no rain. And slowly it's like our confidence and everything is crumbling.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And it's because in this case, it's because of Doge. It's because of Elon and because of the cuts. But in the case of Murderbot, it might be because this nefarious evil company in the background is trying to double or triple sell this. This planet.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That's fucking great. Yeah. Just keep killing the people who buy it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

They have to give it. They pay us in full. And then we murder them. And then we. They pay us in full again.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, oh, oh. Now this is a bit. This is a weird pyramid.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's the same way Spencer's works.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Spencer's Gifts. You don't know that. What if you shoplift from Spencer's gifts and you get arrested. Okay. You have to pay the full market sale price of the item that you stole.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That item still goes back on the shelf and it's still sold.

[Mrs. P]

Even if it's a dildo.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

If it's. As long as it's still in the packaging, yeah. They will put it back up on the shelf. Especially if it's a dildo. Ask me how I know.

[Mrs. P]

I. Because you were also a security guard at a mall.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

At a mall. And people used to steal dildos from Spencer's Gifts all the time. And then they had to go to court. And Spencer's gift would have judgments put against them to pay not only the court fees, but also the full price of the dildo.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And that dildo was also still sold.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And so they were double dipping in the dildo and the dildo dollars.

[Mrs. P]

Double dip.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Double dipping in the dildo dollars.

[Mrs. P]

Who hasn't been there?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, wait, that's the wrong button for that. Double dipping in the dildo dollars. That's the right button.

[Mrs. P]

So they head back to the habitat after this. They're done on their little explorings and the scientists go off to analyze what they found. And Murderbot does security checks. And it receives a notification from the Hub system for an update, another update. And it uses a trick to store it as an ext in an external storage while making the Hub system think that it applied it. Right. So again, this. He's still like, no, I'm not getting any of these fucking updates.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Dr. Mensah contacts Murderbot to tell it that they are not able to contact Delta Full. Murderbot joins the crew in the main area. As they discuss what to do, they've determined that there's enough supplies to take the big hopper over to Delta Fall habitat and back. And so they're like, okay, we can. We have enough stuff, we can get there and back. Because the lack of contact is worrying since Delta Fall has three sec units themselves. And in the event of emergency, both habitats are equipped with emergency beacons that should fire even in the face of Hub system failure or animal attack or like, something like that. So, like, something is amiss.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And so the whole group agrees that a few of them should go to Delta Falls habitat and render aid if necessary, and that Murderbot should join them. And so, like, they're all getting together, doing this whole thing. And as they're packing everything up to go, Dr. Mintz is like, okay, Murderbot, you're gonna sit in the cabin with us again. And he. And it's like, God damn it. Like, he wants to be in the storage with the equipment so bad.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And he's like. Just keeps getting forced to hang out with humans, and he doesn't like interacting with him. He doesn't know how to do it. It's like he's like, I don't understand the cues. I just. Put me back with the luggage, please.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

And during this rati. For some reason, he's one of the scientists gets conversational with Murderbot by mentioning again, like, this is so funny. Trying to have a organic conversation. Right. Make it like a normal conversation. So this scientist is like, hey, did you know that a lot of your organic parts are made by cloned human materials? So, like, theoretically, you probably have feelings. And like, Murderbot is like, if a robot could roll its eyes, like, it must have looked like that. Because the others are like, leave Murderbot alone. Because, like, he is giving the look of being uncomfortable. And so what Murderbot does is he sends the camera view from his helmet view to the viewpoint of Dr. Mensah so that, like, that she can see the feed. And immediately over the intercom, Dr. Mensah is like, Leave Murderbot alone.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Like, POV, you're me stuck with co workers.

[Mrs. P]

Do you see what they're talking to me about? Do you see this?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Pov, Me stuck with co workers is incredible.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Otherwise. Okay, so it's like an uneventful flight. Lots of time to watch my favorite serials.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And they arrive the next day. Murderbot, Dr. Mensah and the others.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I wonder who watched. Not Metropolis. Megalopolis.

[Mrs. P]

Megalopolis.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

The way I did on American Airlines, apparently. The only way you can see it right now.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And it's terrible.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, no, I don't think he'd watch it. He likes good shows. So the.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

How dare you?

[Mrs. P]

The Murderbots in the lead, as they're walking out. And as they walk out into this habitat area, they discover one destroyed SEC unit and a lot of human corpses.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay. I had a feeling it was going to be that. The robots went crazy.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Well, sorry. Big air quotes around crazy.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Murderbot looks around for the two unaccounted for seconds. Because we know we have two other ones.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Right.

[Mrs. P]

Which are suspiciously missing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And he immediately assumes they are now enemies. Immediate ops.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, of course. Because I would be under the same assumption. The. The. The big evil Corp, wherever that is, somewhere.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Has downloaded in the SEC units to murder these people. And now he is. He is. Either he has to immediately join the SEC units or Kill the SEC units.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. There's no other to me.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

If I was the murder bottom.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And I don't have morality. I'm assuming Murderbot doesn't have morality that.

[Mrs. P]

Much can assume that. Right?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. I mean for right now in this part, I would with no morality. I would go with whichever one was going to keep me alive immediately.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because these people that I'm with, I don't know if I'm gonna go back to their freehold planet. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know how that's gonna go. But the big overarching corporation SEC unit.

[Mrs. P]

Murderbot is property of the like insurance.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Company, the big evil company.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. He is just another cog in that machine. Like he gets rented out like a rental car.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gotcha.

[Mrs. P]

Gotcha. So like he, he's not going back to the, to their planet. He's just going back.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, that's what I'm saying though. If there was an option to go back there and then that would be somehow protect me from the evil corporation, then maybe. But most part is like I. Even if I will, you kind of at this point, you got to go with it.

[Mrs. P]

Well, here's the thing. I just. They discuss it in the book where he, he talks to like he's talking to himself in his mind about how like when, when SEC units fight each other, they fight like crazy because they know inherently that they're repairable and that the only way to disarm them is to basically just throw.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

To literally, to literally disarm them.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. You have to like destroy them to shreds to get them to stop because they're programmed. So like when SEC units fight each other, it's like one of us is gonna die in the scenario bud. And so like he knows, he's like, I got two fucking. There's two of them.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying is like it's crazy because you know every. But he's.

[Mrs. P]

But like just to counteract or not counteract but like argue against your point is like I don't think he even thinks about turning on the humans as much as he just knows it. He has to beat them because if not, they're going to beat the shit out of him.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

No option.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, that's what I'm saying. There's another little part of it there. But at the same exact time, since he hasn't been taking the upgrades. Right. He might it and but the upgrade thinks he's been taking it. Yeah, he might, he might have To. He could, like. It's like. It's like breaking a zombie bite.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

You know what I mean?

[Mrs. P]

Like, he could pretend.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He could pretend.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm just throwing it out there.

[Mrs. P]

Murderbot and Dr. Mensah, oh, they come up with this plan where they're gonna, like, basically bait the other two SEC units into an ambush scenario. And this works, right? The two SEC units show up, and Murderbot, in a very crazy battle, ends up killing one of the SEC units, but the other one manages to really severely injure him. And when they, like, beat him up, he, like, did something to Murderbot's neck.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Right, okay.

[Mrs. P]

And Dr. Mensah, though, okay, while this is all happening, she's like, a crazy badass, and she kills the other SEC unit and then. Yeah, gets him. And then she is dragging the battered body of Murderbot back to the hopper, and as they try to. Okay, so, like, the people that are on the. The hopper, they're trying to stabilize Murderbot because really got the. Shipped out of them, right? They. Murderbot realizes that the other two SEC units had gone rogue, and that the last. That second when it hit his neck or whatever, it actually stuck an override module into its data point data port.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. And so they're all surrounding him because he's on, like, a medical table, basically. And they're like, okay, we got to fix this. We got to do the. This thing and this thing to get him back to, like, health or whatever. And he just turns them. He's like, you gotta kill me. You gotta kill me. And they're like, what? And he's like. Starts telling them, like, I. The override is gonna complete any second. You have to kill me. Stop hesitating. And of course, they immediately has it, because he knows that once this thing in his data port goes off, he's gonna kill everybody in the room.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, right.

[Mrs. P]

And they hesitate.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He's seeing. He's seeing a completion bar.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That's at 85% across his eyes internally. And they're not seeing any of this.

[Mrs. P]

And he's just like, kill me. Kill me now.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And they're like, bro, is it that much pain? I thought you were a robot. Yeah, no, no, that's not what it is. But anyway, he's screaming and killing. They're not listening. So he grabs the gun from his armor and shoots himself. Whoa.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And I think that is a perfect place for us to take a little break. It's an incredible area for anyone to hear from the following programmatically chosen Sponsors.

[Mrs. P]

We did not choose.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

We didn't choose.

[Mrs. P]

Who knows what it'll be?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Who knows what it'll be? But come back after this. Or else. This is just. Story ends with him shooting himself in the head. So he shot himself in the head.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So two Murderbots. Surprise. He comes back online.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And finds that the combat override module is gone. Using the security feed, Rderbot discovers that all of the armor has been removed. And, like, what? His eyes are open. He's not really mobile. Right. But his eyes are open and he can see that he's completely surrounded by the humans. There's one person who's actually a modified human, and I don't remember what their name is, but there's a modified human amongst them.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So a cyborg.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, but like, I think humans can choose to be modified. It's weird. There's a lot of, like, interplay of this.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Well, yeah, because it's a. It's a future. It's a futuristic book.

[Mrs. P]

Futuristic book.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they're all around him.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Maybe they're a furry. Maybe they're like half cat.

[Mrs. P]

And they're all around the procedure table. And he's essentially watching them from like, I think he's like, with his eyes closed though, maybe.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, he's watching them through the feed.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, through the feed. Okay. So his naked body quote. And he all. He realizes all of his injuries have been healed and that his hearing system's coming back online. Bubba. So there's other Dr. Grafin. Okay. I haven't named all the doctors as we've been going because I mostly just been focusing on the main ones. No. But also viewing this through Murderbot as though, like, I don't need to know their names until it's really necessary.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, listen, I can tell you from all the jobs I've had over the years, like, I can maybe remember a handful of of people's names. I can remember moments, I can remember faces. But like, if you asked me, like, when I worked as a mall security guard, if you asked me who the supervisor's name was, I couldn't tell you, but if I saw him, I'd be like, oh, that guy was my shift supervisor. Yeah, I remember one guy's first name was Dennis because he was a bag of shit. He was this old mean old man who solely worked that job for healthcare for him and his wife. It was he only he had to work a minimum hours just so he and his wife could get health care because of like this weird rule of Medicare.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So he was like, he was just doing this filler stop gap.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And he hated it. Well, yeah, he so much because he was working, like, Friday nights, and, like, teenagers would be screaming at him that he was a fascist pig. And he was like, I'm literally just trying to keep my wife alive. Like, I'm just. Yes. I don't give a. He's like, I just. I just. You can't. You can't throw water balloons at Chick Fil. A. Like, that's.

[Mrs. P]

And now malls are dead.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Now all the malls are dead, and so is that man and his wife.

[Mrs. P]

Whoa.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

This was 15 years ago, and he was already almost 70.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Pretty sure. I'm pretty sure he was a fascist pig. Looking back, I bet he voted for Trump.

[Mrs. P]

If sitting there with no health insurance without that job and not good Medicare coverage. And he voted for Trump. That checks out.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, it fills every box.

[Mrs. P]

So there's this Dr. Griffin. Griffin. Griffin.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And Janine Garofalo.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. Number one, I love Janine Garofalo. Incredible. Okay. They're around the table, and Dr. Garathan begins explaining to the group that he has immobilized SEC unit because it's been hacked. Not by the combat override module that the rogue SEC unit installed, but because the governor module has been hacked and that the. That the SEC unit did it itself. So this doctor realizes what the hack situation is and immediately is like, this SEC unit is a danger to us. This SEC unit is going to kill us all. We need to get rid of it. Blah, blah, blah. And then the other Dr. Volscue corroborates his findings, but is like, listen, it. It's. It's not like we can't trust it. And so they're. He's like, they're like, it's had free will this whole time. Because, like, they're all like, what do you mean it has free will? Yeah, it's just been doing this. It could kill us at any moment.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But again, this is one of those moments again, when, like, you're like a small, conservative town and then you find out the one guy is an atheist and like, hey, he could have been murder raping all of us the whole time because he doesn't go to church, but he's been choosing not to because it's not even in him.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He just doesn't.

[Mrs. P]

He's an ethical, moral person who just doesn't go to church.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, that's it. And they're like, but he could have been murder raping.

[Mrs. P]

And you're like, have you met Priests.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Not a drag queen. So they're. They're like. They're having this conversation.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Moral argument.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. About whether or not they need to get rid of them because he apparently has hacked himself. Blah, blah, blah. And then Dr. Grathin, who is on the side of, we gotta get rid of this murder bot or this SEC unit. They're dangerous. He's like, well, guess what? I looked at his. Let's call it a hard drive. I looked at his hard drive and did you know that this SEC unit named itself and guess what its name is? Self chosen Murderbot. And they're like. It named itself Murderbot? And they're like, okay, well, like, it only knows what it's told it's supposed to do. Like, they're. They're immediately kind of like, that's weird. That's a weird thing to name yourself. But also like, he. He's playing it like it's his. His trump card in the situation. He's like, it calls itself Murderbot. And. But they're all kind of like. I mean, I guess, but like, they're also just inherently not scared because they've been working with this SEC unit this whole time.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Especially since it's been a free agent this whole time. Grathin's still super skeptical and keeps suggesting that SEC unit is part of whatever nefarious plot took out Deltfall. And the others point out that the extra rogue SEC units on the Deltfall habitat were like, there was never a part of our SEC unit trying to hurt us. Right. So, like, it's. They're all just like, no, it's fine. And he's just like, no, I. I don't. I don't trust this thing. So at this point, murderer brat decides to speak up because, like, it's been listening the whole time.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Which would freak the if the whole time, like, he's asleep. Don't worry about it. And you're just standing next to this guy who is in your mind in a coma. And also he just opens his eyes, goes, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Mrs. P]

So here's the thing. It doesn't open its eyes. It uses the security feed and just kind of is like, it points. It answers the. The question that's being posed. And he's like, listen, I'm not here to kill you. If the company wanted to kill you, it has multiple other ways to kill off a team. It would. It would poison the water or the air and just make it look like a malfunction of systems.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So like they're in this room, and all sudden he's like, no, they wouldn't make me kill you, and I wouldn't do it if you were gonna die. We would just make it look like the water systems got poisoned. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Which is also unnerving, though, when suddenly the speakers of the man who's asleep, he just comes over there. If you're next to someone who's in a coma, and over the hospital intercom, it goes, now, wait a second. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't. No one would even know I did it.

[Mrs. P]

You wouldn't even know I did it. They're like, wait, oh, that's a fucking. So then, wait, you thought about this?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Every second of every day. My name is Murderbot.

[Mrs. P]

I named myself.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm really good at murder.

[Mrs. P]

So this is the point where Graffan is like, listen, I also discovered that Murderbot has actually killed people, people that he was in charge of.57 humans he was supposed to provide security for during a mining operation. And Murderbot explains that that this is why he hacked his governor module to prevent something like that from happening again. And even if Murderbot doesn't know entirely what happened, the. Like, when that murder situation happened, there's 57 people. It's like, no. He basically is like, listen, that happened, right? Like, he doesn't deny. He's like, that happened, but I hacked myself after that, so wouldn't happen again.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, so let me give a quick. This feels very much, very much as that when somebody who is typically like, a white leftist online, especially Internet leftist, who's like, okay, but listen, we were all a little Nazi when we were younger because we got pipelined. And then people like, whoa, whoa, fuck are you talking about? Listen, I grew up. When I was growing up, I was a George W. Bush Stan, who said we should bomb every single country in the Middle east, like we all do. And they're like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[Mrs. P]

You put that in writing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

What?

[Mrs. P]

So anyway, they all tentatively agree that it's unlikely Murderbot's gonna harm them, but Grafin is not convinced, and he's gonna. This is a be in his bonnet for sure.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, well, I would be. I'm gonna take his side a little bit on it. Yeah, just a little bit on it. You have a guy named Murderbot who has killed 57 people who may or may not be controlled by an evil entity and. Or himself.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Who just. Who, mind you, who just shot himself in the Head in front of all of you while screaming, kill me.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, kill me.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Like, so I want to go by his last name.

[Mrs. P]

I want to use that meme with that girl from that TV show. You're gonna have to kill me.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh, yeah, that audio.

[Mrs. P]

So anyway, there's like an argument with Graph and a little bit, it gets a little tense, and Murderbot gently throws him against the wall. No big deal. Mensah gets everybody to calm down a bit and is basically just like, listen. Murderbot has been able to act freely this whole time and has chosen to protect us. Given that they still don't know exactly what happened to at Deltfall and the likelihood that their hub system has actually been compromised, it's better for Murderbot to continue working with them as part of their team. And Mensah is the captain. So this is what they're going to do. Right. They continue to discuss the intentional sabotage by the company or an unknown third survey team before dispersing to take care of various tasks. There's like, Dr. Pinley and Grafin go to the decide they're going to fire the emergency beacon. Boduar and Velusque examine the latest download on the hub system for sec unit, and the others start packing. As they start packing and completing their tasks, the humans begin to realize that, yes, there is an unknown enemy coming for them. And it's coming, like, right now. So it becomes like, this whole thing of, like, oh, oh, like, as they're collecting information, they're like, oh, like, whatever this enemy is, it's on its way.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they load up choppers and get the out of the habitat.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Can I get a guess real quick?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm gonna guess that in the survey, they found something that the. That some other company realizes more valuable. And so now they're trying to take them out before their survey can be complete. So that way the data can't get there. That it'll be their claim. I'm throwing that out there.

[Mrs. P]

Got it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they decide their best option is to fly to a new area that they haven't visited. They land in this hilly area in this, like, tropical jungle, and they make themselves, you know, comfortable.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I love that the planet has multiple biomes.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That nothing knows more. Oh, this is the ice planet. This is the desert planet. This is the jungle planet. No planets have multiple biomes. They should have a little bit of everything.

[Mrs. P]

This is imagination. How many times did you go through this?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I know. George Lucas has poisoned so many people's brains.

[Mrs. P]

They make themselves relatively comfortable and SecUnit establishes a security perimeter while thinking about why exactly it should do it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Should I keep these people alive?

[Mrs. P]

Well, also, just like, he's like, oh, God, I don't even know. Before joining the others, MENSA asked SEC Unit if it can make its helmet transparent to help show the others that maybe like, to help build trust. Like, hey, when you have your helmet sheer, and we can see your face, it's easier for humans to trust you. And since right now people don't really trust you, do you think you could?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because right now, right now you're in murder Bot mode and we need you to be in Steve mode.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And SEC Unit, regardless, reluctantly agrees. Right?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Again, he's just like, this is not part of my job.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

My job is wear helmet and be murder by.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Hey, man. When you're wearing sunglasses, a hat, and you have a gator pulled over your mouth, we can't tell if you're a bounty hunter, a federal agent, or just some psycho proud boy. But they might dox me.

[Mrs. P]

Good.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Sorry.

[Mrs. P]

Good. So now they all start wondering who exactly this evil unknown enemy we're gonna call them evil survey is and what they want. Especially since they pin the blame on rogue SEC units. Well, especially since their plan to pin the blame on rogue SEC units will be easily discovered. So basically, they're trying to figure out who would do this, who this evil survey entity is. And, like, they all know they're going to get caught because everything is in computers. So, like, the. Whoever it is will get caught because they're gonna check the SEC units that got murdered. You know what I mean? And that all the data's in there. So Murderbot suggests that maybe they're banking on the planet's political entities not making a fuss over the deaths. Because, like, again, he's just like, yeah, I mean, like, if we. If people die, like, if maybe the people that run the plans just, like, won't care because it's not a big deal. Like, and he's saying it in passing because this is his. His hundredth mission. And he's like, yeah, yeah, the big company doesn't care because murder is an expendable. It's on an expense line.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

You know what I mean? And he's like, yeah, nobody's gonna make a fuss. Then everyone looks really confused at this. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean no one's gonna make a fuss? So it turns out that. Remember how Murderbot couldn't be bothered to read the info packet about anybody?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So apparently this team includes like super VIPs. And like, this planet's political entities would make a huge fuss if some were to go missing.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay?

[Mrs. P]

And so everybody's just like. Like, they're in shock that Murderbot doesn't know this.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That he doesn't know they're important.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. He doesn't know they're like, I have.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

3 million followers on Tick Tock.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And he's like, I don't.

[Mrs. P]

And he's like, I didn't research you. Who are you?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Your meat bags.

[Mrs. P]

Your meat bag. I'm in charge of. I don't care. Graphen is at this point needling Murderbot trying to test, like, trying to kneel him so that he'll attack. And Mensah is like, leave the SEC unit alone.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Being.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, imagine needling something called robot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I can imagine somebody poking a dog, trying to prove that a dog will bite them, and then the dog biting them. I can imagine a person maybe doing a preemptive strike on something and then getting mad that struck back.

[Mrs. P]

This story report. Stop it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, this isn't a metaphor.

[Mrs. P]

No. So the others back Mensah up and tell Grafton this just fucking stop. Give SEC unit time to adjust to being an autonomous agent and interacting with the humans and stop and just fucking chill out, dude. And as they turn back to their previous conversation, Dr. Rati asks if somehow they can determine where Evil Survey has set up a base. And to the other surprise, Murderbot reveals it has. It had a plan of setting up drones and hidden locations to capture audio and visual recordings. All they have to do is go back and retrieve it. So basically, Murderbot had pre done this. Like, Murderbot sent out these drones and they just need to go collect the images. And everybody's like, wait, you already did this? And like, again, SEC Unit didn't care. Murderbot didn't care. He was like, yeah, I'm just gonna do this. So Dr. Mensa sets up a watch rotation for everyone. And later that night, Murderbot gets a chance to ask. Oh, so everybody's gonna watch the videos from these drones, right? And there's a point where Murderbot gets a chance to, like, sit down with Ratty Ratai. Oh, my God, it's R, A, T, T, H I. I spelled it wrong. Ratai. And it's just like, so who are you guys? Since apparently a very important political entities. And Ratai explains that they are from the Preservation alliance and that Dr. Mensah is the current admin director of the steering committee. And that's why they're confident that the company isn't allied with whoever evil survey is because the fallout from their deaths would essentially ruin them. It's also why launching the beacon was so important, because the company would immediately send transport to pick them up and quite possibly an advanced guard to deal with any problems. So like you said, this is the opposite of dead moon in every single way.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gotcha, gotcha.

[Mrs. P]

They're like, when we set off this beacon, it's. They're going to send it immediately because Dr. Mentz is so important. Because if Dr. Mensah gets murdered, the company that owns SEC unit will lose all credibility and like be put out of business. Basically, yeah. Because they're so important.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gotcha.

[Mrs. P]

Got it. So retired.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because they would never be able to insure anybody.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

We are looking at this from the insurance perspective.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

So they also hint that the preservation controlled territory bots. Oh, during this conversation, they also hint that like, where they live in this free state is a preservation controlled territory where bots and constructs are full citizens. Right.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

He's like trying to be like, hey, so like, where we come from, like, bots, like you are like free citizens?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Like, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And like Murderbot is skeptical immediately. What? And like is skeptical immediately. And also, like, doesn't even think this could be a good thing. It's like, gross. Why would you want that? Yeah, but like, but also knows, I guess, knows that they're still required to or is being told that they're still required to have an appointed human or an augmented human guardian. So like, he's like, yeah, yeah, freedom Schmidom. Sure, sure, whatever.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But also he's like, I'm a. I'm a car. What do I need freedom for?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah. Anyways, Murderbot realizes that Dr. Mentzer's political status was only listed in the packet on sex system, not the hub system. Right. So like, again, because he has all his systems a la carte. Yeah, right. He can see that the SEC unit system and not the hub system, the whole play system doesn't have the same information. Which is why whoever this evil survey team might be unaware that they're dealing with Dr. Mensis status. Because like, whoever evil survey team is, they're only seeing SEC unit systems. They're not seeing hub systems or something like some things.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I think it's the other way around. I think, I think they're only seeing hub systems. They're not seeing sex systems.

[Mrs. P]

Got it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And so because they're not seeing the security side of things, they don't know that they're about to attack a VIP Exactly. And so they just think these are some random people again. There's something they don't want them to see, or there's something they don't want them to find.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And they're like, we'll just get rid of these people and then it won't be a problem. Not realizing that, it's like, baby, you're about to. You're about to. Streisand affect this entire fucking planet.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So the next afternoon, Murderbot prepares to head back to the Habitat to pick up footage from the drones. To its annoyance, Mensah, Ratty, and Pinley insist on coming. So tired of talking to the humans. Yeah, it's incredibly annoyed. Also, Grafton insists on coming too, because grass and wants to keep eyes on the situation. So basically everybody falls asleep except for Murderbot and Graffin, who doesn't think you should fall asleep near Murderbot. And so they stay up and sit in basic silence while they're driving until he asks Dr. Or again, Dr. Grathan asks Murderbot if he was ever punished for killing the humans during that mining operation. So they're sitting in dead silence.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And then suddenly goes, did you get punished for killing those humans? And Murderbot replies that it wasn't necessarily punished in the way that humans would expect, but rather that its memory was purged multiple times and reset over time. And so, like, it's kind of insinuated that, like, Murderbot didn't choose to murder those 57 people, nor does it remember why it was told to murder them.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It just. He just knows that his physical being was used as a murder weapon.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, exactly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And so that's why Murderbot doesn't feel any, like, blame, self blame for this situation. It's like, no, that something happened. I was wiped clean of the information. I couldn't tell you why.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, I was born again.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I joined this church.

[Mrs. P]

I joined this church. But Graph. And asked Murderbot if it blames humans for what happened to it. And Murderbot asserts that constructs are way smarter than that. Wow. So they land their little hopper near this Habitat, and Murderbot carefully makes contact with the hidden drones and sends the footage back that it's been recording, which Murderbot pushes half of to Graph into review. They begin reviewing footage, coming across visual recording. They come across a visual recording of Evil Survey's arrival. They landed in a hopper with a square gray logo that said Gray Chris, A G R A Y C R I S. Gray Kris, a name none of them are familiar with. Gray Kris clearly wasn't playing around Though, because when they're getting off the hopper, they have five SEC units and they're all. The humans are armed themselves. So Murderbot notes, though, that they're SEC units and they're not combat units, which is different. So they're like. The humans didn't look like professional soldiers either, either. So they look like. Not like in shape.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So they're not Black Water.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gotcha. These aren't mercenaries. These are just some weirdos.

[Mrs. P]

Some people. So. Graph and interrupts the review to show everyone a recording. It's a blurred image of a support structure, but in the audio, a woman tells them that they've destroyed their beacon. She gives them a set of coordinates and a time of day to meet, saying that they will find a way to come to some agreement that doesn't involve violence. Mensa asked SEC Unit for its opinion, and it states that Gray Chris is clearly trying to deal with them now because they don't want to have to chase them around until their scheduled transport arrives at the end of the project. This seems odd because Gray Chris assumes the survey team knows why they're there. And Mensa concludes. Concludes that they must have something to do with the missing map sections and wonders how they can use this as leverage. And Murderbot comes up with an idea.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm so confused by the sentence you just said.

[Mrs. P]

I'm so.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I have no idea what you just said to me. I'm gonna be honest.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Because. Oh, stop. Let me go. Let's start at the back of the video.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. Sorry.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So. So Murderbot, that saw footage of these bad guys, they're called Gray Chris.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gray Chris, look at me.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gray Chris. It doesn't know these people are famous.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But also, Gray Chris then sent a message or left a message for them to say, let's meet up. Which is clearly a trap.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay. Murderbot, is it decided that the Gray Chris knows or believes that the VIPs have more information about the maps of the planet then are there? Is that what you're saying?

[Mrs. P]

No. Mensa. Mensah thinks that these people, the Gray Chris people, have something to do with the missing map sections.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, that I understand.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And so Mensa believes that Gray Chris has information about the planet.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That is being hidden from Mensa.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And everybody else. Yeah, got it. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

I apologize.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

No, that's fine. It's not your fault. I was just. There was a lot in that. That was a very. That was a very. That was a thick paragraph. And you know what else is gonna be a thick em.

[Mrs. P]

Paragraph.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Exactly. Whatever these ads that are about to play are going to be.

[Mrs. P]

We'll be right back for the conclusion on the other end of this ad, y' all.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

500.Net if you want to join us on Patreon. So you don't have to hear all these ads. You just get to. To hear what we say before we cut away to them.

[Mrs. P]

And there's a lot of exclusive fun content over there. I'd be making a lot of exclusive fun content over there.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Do love making some. And we have a good comment section. But with all of that being said.

[Mrs. P]

Let'S talk about Murderbot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Let's talk about the Murderbot diaries.

[Mrs. P]

So listen, here's what happened after this. Mensa sends Murderbot to be an emissary, basically. And so Murderbot's gonna go meet with Gray Chris as the emissary of this. Of our team.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And great Chris is the evil survey people.

[Mrs. P]

Evil survey people.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Murderbot's gonna go and meet with whoever these people are.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And Murderbot meets with them, but as soon as he gets in front of their leader, he basically heel turns and he's like, listen, I don't even like these people. You know me, I'm a Murderbot.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay?

[Mrs. P]

I don't want to do any of this. Why don't you, like, in exchange for my freedom, I'll give you those people. I'll give you them, and I'll give you all their information.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

A double cross.

[Mrs. P]

A double cross.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Gotcha.

[Mrs. P]

Immediately, Murderbot's gonna double cross, and they're like, we were gonna put. We were gonna kill you, but this seems like a good idea, so let's do it. They're like, bet you bring us Mensa and you get your freedom.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Got it. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So basically, at some point, if that Murderbot kills one of the other SEC units and then swaps the armor so that it looks like it's one of the Grey Chris armor SEC units.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Wait, what? Yeah, so Murderbot does like, we're gonna.

[Mrs. P]

Do a double cross is like, I'm gonna double cross my team.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But then as Murderbot leaves because he's an emissary, I'm leaving.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I gotta go back now. And then convince them into whatever.

[Mrs. P]

Convince them to meet you guys at this spot. We're gonna come up with gotcha. And then instead of going back, he actually goes and finds one of their SEC units, kills it and steals its clothes. Basically. Basically.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

Now, the whole time our team is. Some of them are on foot heading out into the jungle area, and some of them are heading towards the beacon, right?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So the whole team is not even in their place.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Everybody's.

[Mrs. P]

Everybody's scattered everywhere. Got it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Got it. She's. It. It's the great Chris.

[Mrs. P]

She's. It's the gray Chris. Exactly. Then Murderbot meets up with Mensa, and they. They come up with this whole scene where they're gonna. He. Murderbot's gonna drag Mensa, who's like, screaming, crying, throwing up, back to Grey Chris because. Right, I'm bringing you the leader. Okay. And Grey Chris is like, okay, bet we'll do that. That's great. While this is happening, Murderbot actually just gets put in cargo with the other SEC units, which it's like. It does like.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's like, oh, that's fine. Back in cargo.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, this is comfy, cozy. I'm with the cargo.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But nobody treat me like a person.

[Mrs. P]

Nobody treat me like a person. So. But while this is happening, Mensa's with the leaders at Grey Chris. Murderbot's back in cargo, but it plugs into the feed so it can listen. It, like, plugs in secretly so it hears Mensa tell the gray Chris leaders that they have all this information about what they've done. They know where all the dead bodies are. And the leader tries to brush them off and be like, listen, will still be able to come up with some.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Tries to brush. Tries to brush Mensa off.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So Mensa is basically, we know what you did. We've got images, we've got video. We know where all the bodies are. And the leader's like, listen, listen, listen. We can come to some kind of arrangement, right?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And men says, like, who is this.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Leader of the Great Chris? Did they ever describe them really or anything? Or.

[Mrs. P]

I think it's a lady. I don't know. Just some evil person, some evil bad guy.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay, got it.

[Mrs. P]

Evil bad guy. So the whole thing is they're on a cargo ship.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Bad gal.

[Mrs. P]

Bad gal. Okay, great. Chris and Mensa all on this cargo ship, and they're heading to where the beacon is.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. Because they're. They're thinking they're gonna go meet up with the rest of the team there.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

They do not know that the be. The beacon is nearby, or they don't know that the Currently, some of the team is trying to set off the beacon.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Great. Chris doesn't know that.

[Mrs. P]

Great. Chris doesn't know they're driving towards a beacon. And they don't know that the team is actually on the ground, not at the hub. And the team is going to try to set off the beacon.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. Should make that clear. So they land near there, but Murderbot's immediately upset as they D plane as it marches off with the other SEC units because they're way too close to the beacon. So the thing is, is like, Murderbot knew they wanted to be close to the beacon, but they're so close. And the thing is that again, this company is super cheap. So since these emergency beacons are only meant to be launched once, they don't care what happens to them. And one of the things is that when they kind of have a blast zone, debris and sharp shit and everything goes everywhere and they're really dangerous because they don't care.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So it's like shoddy made things.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. But it's also. It's also basically just a giant rocket that's supposed to go out into the atmosphere and then transmit.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

So they're right away, he's like, God, we're too close.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And this was built by SpaceX. It's gonna explode.

[Mrs. P]

It's gonna. No, exactly. That's what I pictured was, it's a.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

SpaceX rocket he's gonna play for this year alone.

[Mrs. P]

He's so bad at making rockets.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So Mensa and Gray Kiss are basically talking about how Mensa is going to give them all the information they want. And the whole time, the other members are about to set off this beacon, which Murderbot knows. And so in his mind, this clock is ticking because he knows the team is over on the side of this bush. Right. Because they're in this jungle setting.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And time is running out, while Gray Chris is basically doing their evil villain speech, like, this is what we're gonna do, but I don't think we ever really learned what they're gonna do. But anyway, Murderbot is calculating in his mind how fast he has to get, how much time he has left. And all of a sudden he kind of just like it. Time's running out. And so he runs towards Mensa and. Because he's gonna save her.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And the Gray Chris leaders. And second, it's kind of like when they see the SEC unit that is in their armor suddenly out of nowhere, run towards Mensa. Bolt, full sprint at Mensa. They're like, wait, what the fuck's going on? And then that's when they were like, this is a trap. Right? Something's happening. This is a trap. And just as they kind of come to the realization, the beacon begins to launch. Right.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And Murderbot Grabs Mensa and jumps off of basically a plateau cliff into a rocky hill below. And as that jump occurs, a Murderbot fades out of consciousness and Mensa's screaming overcomes to Grafton, right? And like, a lot of stuff happens. Like, but Murderbot's not there for it anymore. You know what I mean? They've faded out. It's like we don't know what's going on, but there's a lot of yelling, there's a lot of screaming, blah, blah, blah. All of a sudden, Murderbot comes back online and they're in a cubicle, but not like the shitty ones on in the Hub. This is like a permanent one at the company station. So they're back at headquarters and the. The whole thing is like, Murderbot's immediately nervous because everybody knew that he was hacked, right?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And now he's at, you know, he's at the shop.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

He's like, oh, no.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, with his aftermarket parts.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so he immediately starts checking his, like, servers and he's like. And everything is, is. Is not on. Like, he's technically not functioning, but all of his media is still there. You know what I mean? So he's like, okay, well, the soaps are here. They didn't. They didn't clear me, baby.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

They didn't touch my interests.

[Mrs. P]

They didn't touch my special interests. But. So, like, some of his things aren't working, but some of. Some of his stuff is working. It's just he doesn't know why some is there and some isn't. Because he assumes he was gonna get wiped.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

You know, he's back at headquarters. You get wiped at headquarters for your next gig.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. Yeah, I do like that. Him missing a bit a fair chunk of the action is a pretty classic. The Hobbit. And then. And then Bilbo got hit in the head with a rock and missed the entire big battle. But don't worry, these guys won. Then this happened, and then now we're all just sitting in a bed and we're kind of catching up on it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

So we can save 97 pages worth of content and descriptions.

[Mrs. P]

I prefer, as you know, famously on one of our action packed books, I kind of just.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

You skipped all of the action. Yeah, I know. But in this one, in the book itself, they're also skipping.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, it's nice. Great. Perfect. So he decides he's gonna get up and he's exiting the room and he is informed that Dr. Mensah has bought out his contract.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

And that he will Be going back to the planet with them. A couple of bot and human techs come in and give Murderbot a change of clothes. But not like armor. It's actually a survey uniform for Preservation Ox. Okay, so he has a uniform that.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

They'Re all wearing for the company that they were wearing? Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

It's funny because like, so now he's walking out with some of the other doctors and like, like there's like this him leaving. He's looking around. He's like, he's never seen the human area. The waiting room.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

There's like flowers and pots and like there's a glass chandelier. Like the human part of it. It's like working at a restaurant. He's never been to the front.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, he's never been to the front of the house. He's never once seen the host stand?

[Mrs. P]

No. He's like walking around like in awe of like what is going on. And as they're walking down this one hallway, there's a very funny kind of pass by scene where Dr. Pinlay is in the hallway and there's two company representatives and they're kind of yelling at them being like, you know, it's really irregular. Like we need to purge the unit before it changes hands. Like this is against contract. And Dr. Pinlay, who I love in this moment so much, it's just like, I have a court order. I have a court order. We're taking our product as is. Here's the documentation. Don't ask me any more fucking questions. Is it but like again, murder, boss just walking by and you kind of just like side here this. And I love it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

My favorite part of the whole book. I have a court order. Yeah. So we're taking our murder. Ma' am.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

We have a court order.

[Mrs. P]

Don't you dare purge my murder. But yep, so the three of them leave the deployment center and head to a hotel. Murderbot is seeing the human area stuff for the first time and is like having an basically what would be described as an existential crisis of like, what is happening? What am I going to do next? Like, they doesn't understand why Dr. Mensah did this, but it just, it kind of. It just doesn't know what to think of any of this. Right. It's no longer a sec unit. It doesn't really have a job. Mensa lives on a peaceful planet. So like, they don't have war there. There's no murder bot needs. I think Dr. Mensah lives on a farm, so he's like, what am I gonna do on a farm? Like, he'll have to interact with humans all the time. Yeah, all the time.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. They're describing his Hell, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

He's like, oh.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

He's like, I want to stay at the company. But also. Which I don't really care about. But also, like, don't reset me.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, but it's. And it's like, it's this thing where it's. Murderbot realizes that this is the achievement that of everything it's supposed to want. Like, you're supposed to want freedom. You're supposed to want to go retire on a beautiful, peaceful planet on a farm with people that respect you. And Murderbot, just like, I guess. Is that what you're supposed to want? I don't know. So the plans are being made. Murderbot's gonna fly back the next day with everybody. But later that night, in the middle of the night, while the rest of the team is sleeping, Murderbot slips out of the hotel and makes his way down to the docks to a ship rig and finds a cargo transport bot ship. Pardon me, and pretends to be a servant bot, hoping to rejoin its guardian. And so he, like, plugs in and shows the cargo ship bot that all the cool media and soap operas and comic books it has, and the cargobot's like, oh, hell yeah. Come aboard. And so Murderbot goes aboard this ship with the promise to share all this cool thousands of hours of media with the cargo ship bot and then writes a message that it's gonna basically, like, internally email to Dr. Mensah explaining that while it doesn't know what it wants, it does know that it doesn't want anyone else to decide what it wants or to make its decisions. And that Dr. Mensah is its favorite human. It's never really liked any other human except for Dr. Mensah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

You're my favorite.

[Mrs. P]

But I don't want anyone else to tell me what to do. So I'm gonna go. Thank you. Bye. And that's the end of the book.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Wow. Wow. I love that. I love that. That is such a great ending. And it's such a. Such a. That's so good. That's so. That's so incredibly good.

[Mrs. P]

It's just like, I don't want anybody to tell me what to do.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, you know what? Don't tell me what to do. I.

[Mrs. P]

Even if what you want me to do is nice.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. That's. You know what it is? It's me being like, wouldn't this be a nice thing to do? And you're like, that does sound nice. I don't want to do it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I don't want to do it. No, I don't. Especially if somebody tells me to do it. Oh, that's the worst 10 out of 10. Incredible book. Incredible book. I love this ending. I love that they also like do all that work to free him and he's like, all right, thanks. I'm free. Right? I'm free.

[Mrs. P]

I'm free.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Then I'm free. Like, yeah. And then immediately he goes to another shitty place. So it's so. It's so perfectly coded. This is an incredible book.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Do you think we should watch the Apple series?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I'm. We're going to watch. We're 100% going to watch the Apple series. I'm excited.

[Mrs. P]

This is basically me selling you that we're going to watch this Apple series.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I was already going to watch it. I already wanted to watch it. I just knew from earlier this month you posted on your Instagram and you posted on the 1st.

[Mrs. P]

Before I posted.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

You mentioned. You mentioned it to me. And it was right as this series was coming out. And the part is, is it's funny because we've had a couple things like this where you've done stuff and then it's been like. Right as it's been breaking into more bigger culture.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Where I'm like, it, it's, it's. We just Weird timing.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And we didn't. The Apple never reached out to us. Nobody ever. Obviously, Apple never reached out to us. But I mean, but it's just one.

[Mrs. P]

Of those things reach out.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I would. I want to mention. Because it's one of those just oddities.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Of just that like timing of just like.

[Mrs. P]

Well, no, I had been like, you've.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Been receiving this book for like a.

[Mrs. P]

Year book and the comments and the emails for years at this point. And I read it and I was just like waiting for the right time and I felt like it's a really good summer read. That's what I think about, like, there are certain books where like, it's a good summer read. Like you could sit in. In my version of a summer thing. A lake house by the lake on a nice day deck and read a nice eight chapter book. Come on.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Or in yours, on the beach read eight chapter book.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

I don't read on the beach. No, I don't. You don't know. Why would the. I read in bed. If I read it all.

[Mrs. P]

If I read it. If I read it all, I read in fiction.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And I'm Definitely not gonna read fiction. And I'm definitely not gonna. No, I read. I read the way everyone else reads. Via scroll on the toilet. That's how I read.

[Mrs. P]

Thank you guys for joining us for this story.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah, thank you so much. And thank you, Mrs. P. For. For reporting this story.

[Mrs. P]

I've reported this story and I report that I love this story. And I actually, I want to watch the Apple show. But I do want to read the rest of the books.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Cuz I want to find out why he's a flesh robot and that they had compassion for him because it was implied that something might have happened with the flesh robots. And I want to know more.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Yeah. I think it's also interesting as time has gone on about our robot and people understanding more that robots of the future it will likely be because we watched. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 recently. We hated it.

[Mrs. P]

It was not great.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But one of the big things was they went to this place that was like made of flesh.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. It was so gross.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It was incredibly gross. But it also makes sense the same way as we're getting more and more into the world of like fake bio meats.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And all these different things with growth and program and like understanding how you can program genetics and understanding how you can program down to like the cellular level.

[Mrs. P]

Hate it all.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It's grow. It is truly gross. I know. I understand that.

[Mrs. P]

I'm unplugging the Alexa thinking about it.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

But. But that is also one of those things that's going to be a difference on how we look at robots and future tech and all these different things as we get deeper into this century versus last century. Think about how a robot. Our ideas of robots. Last century. Right.

[Mrs. P]

Did we do an episode about Luddites or did we just talk about it?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

We've talked about them in the past. Like Luddites are so nebulous.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

That there was a movement, but that all these different things. And how it was a actually a labor movement to fight back against technology. But it was then it was aimed at. And the changes in technology, but also how it worsened the pay of the people. And instead they reframed it into saying that they were more like people who just hated the idea of technology.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. I think we should do an episode on Luddites. Well, maybe we will because I feel like it's very of the moment right now. Anyway, we gotta go.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

We do gotta go. I just want to say I really enjoyed this book. 10 out of 10. I highly recommend it.

[Mrs. P]

I feel like you've enjoyed Almost every book this year so far.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Almost every book so far? Yeah, I think you have.

[Mrs. P]

I mean, we started the year off big with Gay Werewolf and it's really been just a year of banger.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Well, can I tell you the other part of it too is that you've. You've learned kind of more of what the right books are for Story Report. Because I think early on when you were choosing some books, you're like, this book looks fine. And then you'd read it and you're like, that wasn't. And fine. I know. And the listeners don't know this, but you, you read like three or four books and then choose one.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Before I think you were reading some books and then you're like, well, we're doing this one. And then like halfway through, I was just like this. This is a stinker. This isn't even fun for me to make fun of. But I think, I think this book had some interesting ideas that could. That pulled forward. But also just the fact that I lived the Murderbot Lifestyle Speaks.

[Mrs. P]

This book was about you. Yeah, I know.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

It speaks to me at a whole different level. But thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. We will be back on Sunday with a whole new episode of Too many Tabs with regularly scheduled programming and all that other fun stuff.

[Mrs. P]

You're gonna wear joker makeup again?

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

The people are calling me the woker.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, my God.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

And you know, it depends. It depends on whether or not you let me go to the store to buy milk. Too many frauds and too many scammers.

[Mrs. P]

That we wish weren't real.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Too many cons and too many spammers. And we're starting to feel like we've got too many tabs.

[Mrs. P]

Open it too many times.

[Mr. Pearl Mania]

Remember to smile. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads. Com, that's L, I B S Y N ads. Com Today.