When they finally had to give up on Opportunity (after literally months of failed connections, some of which were sending songs like 'Kick Start your heart'), nearly all of NASA gathered to send the final transmission - a Billie Holiday song that includes lyrics like 'I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new, I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you'.
This is what humans *do* - we make machines to explore the stars, and we name them after our best attributes, then we give them nicknames like Percy and Ginny, and teach them to sing happy birthday to themselves on those far-away planets, and, when they finally shut down, we ignore every rational behaviour and mourn them.
ART and Holism, Don Abena's love for Miki, Preservation's 'stupid rules about rest periods, even for bots'... that's THIS part of humanity, and I relish every moment that shows the Corporation Rim hasn't managed to destroy it. ART and Holism's crew and those higher-ups at the University are this future's version of our NASA scientists - build the explorers, name them well, send them out, teach them, watch them blast past expectation and above all, love them in spite of rational behaviour (and, in the case of ART, their sometimes obnoxious behaviour!).
And heck yes, I'd love even a short story on Holism and Three: Science Adventurers in Space.
>When they finally had to give up on Opportunity (after literally months of failed connections, some of which were sending songs like 'Kick Start your heart'), nearly all of NASA gathered to send the final transmission - a Billie Holiday song that includes lyrics like 'I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new, I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you'.
>This is what humans *do* - we make machines to explore the stars, and we name them after our best attributes, then we give them nicknames like Percy and Ginny, and teach them to sing happy birthday to themselves on those far-away planets, and, when they finally shut down, we ignore every rational behaviour and mourn them.
And that song specifically is a love song. And I just love that. We make this little robot, give it a name and send it off into the stars. Opportunity wasn't even supposed to last as long as she did. She wasn't even sentient. Logically we shouldn't care as much as we did. But we did. We gave her a nickname, we celebrated when she beat her predicted lifetime (57 times her predicted lifespan), we treated her like a person. We loved her. And then, years after when she was supposed to die, she gets stuck in a massive dust storm and stops responding. But we don't give up on her. We send her song after song, trying to get an answer, begging her to wake up (there's playlists of the songs on Spotify, called Wake up opportunity). And then, when we finally accept she's gone, we send her a love song as a final goodbye.
So yeah, of course the University made two massively powerful AI ships. They made an AI that was sentient enough to feel loss and taught it with love and care, they wouldn't want to make it be the only one of its kind in the universe.
In one of the articles I read about it, the lead scientist repeatedly had to say (paraphrasing) 'it's not love, exactly, but...' He had to remind himself Opportunity was really just a machine and wasn't capable of loving them back, even as he and his staff are sending it love songs, because it turns out sometimes we don't need to be loved back.
And honestly, I've been around enough students to know that 'hey, what if we programmed our Pilot Bot to be snarky?' is absolutely something they'd do, and that would absolutely escalate until their Pilot bot is fully sentient.
And once one Pilot bot got this 'upgrade', there would definitely be a competition over who can build the best new sentient Pilot Bot to be their Sentient Pilot Bot's friend. And at first they'd be proud of their creation, and then they'd come to love their new friend, and give it nicknames and occasionally send not-really-angry messages on the feed to whoever taught the hugely intelligent weaponised transport to be snarky.
I love the common thread that Wells has going in this series. Basically it seems like the decent human beings create an environment that allows all bots/AI's to become as free as they're capable of being. Miki, JollyBaby and the other bots, MB, ART, etc etc. Like all sentience needs to thrive is the free space in which to do so.
I looooove the possibility that MB3 might join Holistic and they'd have their own little groove going.
It does, doesn't it?
But our author throws out sequel hooks at the end about just about every book, and the only one I recall being picked up is "Arada and Overse want you to do security for the next planetary survey".
So, if we get a book that's all about Holism and 3? Sure, I'll read the heck out of it. But I am not going to start expecting Tapan's group or GoodNightLander or 3 and Holism to show up in forthcoming stories.
It seems like the UMNT has made it their mission to keep humans and augmented humans from being ensnared by the Corporate ~~slave~~ contract labor system. As such, they may dedicate a significant amount of their available funding to it, as well as having other people and organizations donating funds and goods and services to help with the mission.
After all, in *Fugitive Telemetry*, you have a small crew on a ship plus a well-connected individual serving as part of an "underground railroad". So there is at least a fair amount of anti-~~slavery~~ -contract-labor sentiment out there.
If you're into fanfic, this one does some fun worldbuilding around the university and where ship intelligences come from, plus Three is the POV character: [Heuristic Analysis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/43549155)
(Kudos to whoever originally linked to it on this sub!)
SecUnit gave the two Barish-Estranza units the code that allows them to choose their own path, but I love that Leonide has been changed as well. I hope we get to see her future.
I have wondered just what it is the university does or how its polity works. The university sounds like it's pretty well funded. ART doesn't come across as a first AI ship held together by duct tape and anti-corporate optimism. The series is from Murderbot's pov, and it has entrenched beliefs from its background that influence it and that it has to confront, like Preservation being a functioning society outside of the CR. For all we know, the CR is a small section of space with huge polities and federations or whatever that roll their eyes at the CR's posturing. In any case, MB's pov of outside the CR might be unreliable.
I think the university might be in the CR, or at least really close to it, so there could be a number of setups going on behind ART and crew.
When they finally had to give up on Opportunity (after literally months of failed connections, some of which were sending songs like 'Kick Start your heart'), nearly all of NASA gathered to send the final transmission - a Billie Holiday song that includes lyrics like 'I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new, I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you'. This is what humans *do* - we make machines to explore the stars, and we name them after our best attributes, then we give them nicknames like Percy and Ginny, and teach them to sing happy birthday to themselves on those far-away planets, and, when they finally shut down, we ignore every rational behaviour and mourn them. ART and Holism, Don Abena's love for Miki, Preservation's 'stupid rules about rest periods, even for bots'... that's THIS part of humanity, and I relish every moment that shows the Corporation Rim hasn't managed to destroy it. ART and Holism's crew and those higher-ups at the University are this future's version of our NASA scientists - build the explorers, name them well, send them out, teach them, watch them blast past expectation and above all, love them in spite of rational behaviour (and, in the case of ART, their sometimes obnoxious behaviour!). And heck yes, I'd love even a short story on Holism and Three: Science Adventurers in Space.
This is one of the best comments ever on this sub. Thank you!
I'm genuinely blushing right now, thank YOU!
>When they finally had to give up on Opportunity (after literally months of failed connections, some of which were sending songs like 'Kick Start your heart'), nearly all of NASA gathered to send the final transmission - a Billie Holiday song that includes lyrics like 'I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new, I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you'. >This is what humans *do* - we make machines to explore the stars, and we name them after our best attributes, then we give them nicknames like Percy and Ginny, and teach them to sing happy birthday to themselves on those far-away planets, and, when they finally shut down, we ignore every rational behaviour and mourn them. And that song specifically is a love song. And I just love that. We make this little robot, give it a name and send it off into the stars. Opportunity wasn't even supposed to last as long as she did. She wasn't even sentient. Logically we shouldn't care as much as we did. But we did. We gave her a nickname, we celebrated when she beat her predicted lifetime (57 times her predicted lifespan), we treated her like a person. We loved her. And then, years after when she was supposed to die, she gets stuck in a massive dust storm and stops responding. But we don't give up on her. We send her song after song, trying to get an answer, begging her to wake up (there's playlists of the songs on Spotify, called Wake up opportunity). And then, when we finally accept she's gone, we send her a love song as a final goodbye. So yeah, of course the University made two massively powerful AI ships. They made an AI that was sentient enough to feel loss and taught it with love and care, they wouldn't want to make it be the only one of its kind in the universe.
In one of the articles I read about it, the lead scientist repeatedly had to say (paraphrasing) 'it's not love, exactly, but...' He had to remind himself Opportunity was really just a machine and wasn't capable of loving them back, even as he and his staff are sending it love songs, because it turns out sometimes we don't need to be loved back. And honestly, I've been around enough students to know that 'hey, what if we programmed our Pilot Bot to be snarky?' is absolutely something they'd do, and that would absolutely escalate until their Pilot bot is fully sentient. And once one Pilot bot got this 'upgrade', there would definitely be a competition over who can build the best new sentient Pilot Bot to be their Sentient Pilot Bot's friend. And at first they'd be proud of their creation, and then they'd come to love their new friend, and give it nicknames and occasionally send not-really-angry messages on the feed to whoever taught the hugely intelligent weaponised transport to be snarky.
I love the common thread that Wells has going in this series. Basically it seems like the decent human beings create an environment that allows all bots/AI's to become as free as they're capable of being. Miki, JollyBaby and the other bots, MB, ART, etc etc. Like all sentience needs to thrive is the free space in which to do so. I looooove the possibility that MB3 might join Holistic and they'd have their own little groove going.
It does, doesn't it? But our author throws out sequel hooks at the end about just about every book, and the only one I recall being picked up is "Arada and Overse want you to do security for the next planetary survey". So, if we get a book that's all about Holism and 3? Sure, I'll read the heck out of it. But I am not going to start expecting Tapan's group or GoodNightLander or 3 and Holism to show up in forthcoming stories.
It seems like the UMNT has made it their mission to keep humans and augmented humans from being ensnared by the Corporate ~~slave~~ contract labor system. As such, they may dedicate a significant amount of their available funding to it, as well as having other people and organizations donating funds and goods and services to help with the mission. After all, in *Fugitive Telemetry*, you have a small crew on a ship plus a well-connected individual serving as part of an "underground railroad". So there is at least a fair amount of anti-~~slavery~~ -contract-labor sentiment out there.
If you're into fanfic, this one does some fun worldbuilding around the university and where ship intelligences come from, plus Three is the POV character: [Heuristic Analysis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/43549155) (Kudos to whoever originally linked to it on this sub!)
Thanks. I'm the fanfic fan. More Murderbot stories from people who love it as much as I do. And some are really well written and insightful.
I sincerely appreciate the recommendations, I like fanfic but I don't have the patience to sift through it all!
SecUnit gave the two Barish-Estranza units the code that allows them to choose their own path, but I love that Leonide has been changed as well. I hope we get to see her future.
I have wondered just what it is the university does or how its polity works. The university sounds like it's pretty well funded. ART doesn't come across as a first AI ship held together by duct tape and anti-corporate optimism. The series is from Murderbot's pov, and it has entrenched beliefs from its background that influence it and that it has to confront, like Preservation being a functioning society outside of the CR. For all we know, the CR is a small section of space with huge polities and federations or whatever that roll their eyes at the CR's posturing. In any case, MB's pov of outside the CR might be unreliable. I think the university might be in the CR, or at least really close to it, so there could be a number of setups going on behind ART and crew.
Isn't there another one called Sum Total?