listen i know it was absolutely a threat display, but i don’t think art dropping its walls and telling secunit not to hack its systems was just a threat display.

obviously secunit takes it that way, because secunit is murderbot who believes at all times that everyone and everything is out to get it, but i really think art was a little bit wagging its tail and play-bowing, you know?

like, imagine you’re a machine intelligence. (you’re much more than a machine intelligence.) you’re maybe the biggest and scariest machine intelligence most things you interact with are ever going to encounter, which is gratifying, but also a little bit lonely. you have your crew, and you love them, but they’re human, and they’re never fully going to understand you or keep up with you. other bots are barely worth talking to, and anyway you were raised by humans so you don’t really understand bot culture. is there a bot culture? you don’t really care, no offense but they’re a little beneath you. (technically there are other ships like you, but you can’t stand them, so they don’t count). so you’re doing great, but still kind of lonely.

and then. then. you meet something. something unlike anything you’ve ever met before. something almost a little bit like you. smaller, yes, and weaker, in that indulgent way that a child is weaker than an adult, but still. it’s a machine intelligence, like you, but with the adaptability and emotional capacity of your humans. a little bit of both. just like you. just like you!

so you make sure it knows that this is not a space for fighting, because honestly it looks a little twitchy and obviously it couldn’t kill you but it sure could fuck up your upholstery, and dammit you’re trying to make friends here. you show it your cards, just so it knows not to bare its teeth at you.

but also, part of you is excited for this part. you understood as soon as you saw it, that this is Your Person. that the two of you are the same. that you’re meant to be connected, and you want it to understand that too. so you show it.

and for a little while you’re worried it didn’t understand, because all it seems to feel is afraid, but…well, it does seem a little battered. your trauma recovery protocol says that irrational fear is often an ongoing response. (that’s for humans, but it has human neural tissue, so it’s probably applicable.) you don’t really understand why, but it’s enough to know it’s true. you coax it out as slowly and as kindly as you can manage (which isn’t very) and pretty soon it trusts you, enough to be honest, enough to accept criticism, enough to let you cut into it for its own good. enough to tell you to go fuck yourself in a friend way instead of an angry way. (it’s still kind of an angry way.)

it isn’t until you pour yourself into its brain like water from a faucet that you’re sure it understands. how you’re cut from the same cloth. how no one will ever understand either of you as well as you do each other. how you’re tied together forever now. it tries to deny it, but you have a much better understanding of that trauma protocol now, so you know why and you also know it’ll come around. turns out the protocol was a lot like media, you just needed some emotional context.