40 pages • 1 hour read
Martha WellsAll Systems Red
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
As the hopper nears the rendezvous point, Mensah and Murderbot scan the area and discover that the GrayCris team consists of 30-40 individuals. Mensah contacts them and tells them that they have the data that GrayCris’s wants and will transmit it to the main ship when it arrives. After confirming their response, she sends Murderbot to discuss terms with GrayCris.
There are four SecUnits and three humans at the site, each wearing a green, blue, or yellow uniform. When Murderbot arrives, they try to remotely install another combat module into it, but they fail due to Murderbot’s hacked governor module. Murderbot expands but does not use its arm weapons; the GrayCris members are shocked that Murderbot is not immobilized. They are even more shocked when Murderbot begins to negotiate with them. GrayCris has never met a construct that has its own will, and both the humans and SecUnits are flustered.
Murderbot tells Blue Leader it has gone rogue and wants them to take it on its ship listed as destroyed inventory in exchange for the data. To transmit the data, they will have to reactivate their HubSystem. Blue Leader confers with Yellow Leader, and they agree. Murderbot informs them that it has sent one of their engineers, an augmented human, to trigger their emergency beacon. They panic because with the systems disconnected, this should not be possible. They decide to take Mensah hostage while their team investigates the beacon. GrayCris knows they cannot kill Mensah because she is a political figure, and they will face extensive investigations. They send one of their SecUnits to accompany Murderbot while it gets Mensah from the hopper. The hopper is located behind a group of trees, and once Murderbot and the SecUnit are out of sight, Murderbot attacks and kills the other unit. Murderbot realizes it is one of the SecUnits from DeltFall and feels bad because it knows the unit is operating under a combat override module.
Murderbot changes into the GrayCris uniform from the downed SecUnit and pretends to take Mensah hostage. In the hopper, Mensah reveals that it knows GrayCris is looking for remnants left by former inhabitants of the planet; Bharadwaj discovered that the remnants had confused the scanners, which led to the missing map sections. GrayCris wants to illegally mine and sell the remnants.
When the hopper lands at the beacon site, Murderbot makes a security perimeter with the other SecUnits. The launch sequence is in motion, and Murderbot knows the company does not provide safety features for the beacon’s rocket launcher. It breaks formation to rescue Mensah, and the other SecUnits open fire. Murderbot saves Mensah by diving off a cliff with her just as the beacon launches. Murderbot sustains heavy damage, but Mensah is okay. Pin-Lee, Arada, and Gurathin pick them up in the little hopper, and Murderbot delivers an automatic message to discard it because it is no longer functional, but Mensah replies: “You shut the fuck up. We’re not leaving you” (138). Once Murderbot realizes everyone else is safe, it succumbs to its injuries and goes offline.
Chapter 8 Summary
Murderbot wakes up in a cubicle at the company station. It is surprised to find that even though it is being repaired, its governor module is still offline. Ratthi arrives in civilian clothes and tells Murderbot that Mensah has bought its contract, and it will stay with them permanently in Preservation Alliance territory. The station units give Murderbot a gray PreservationAux uniform instead of armor, which makes Murderbot feel awkward. They meet Pin-Lee, who is wearing a sharp business suit, and she informs the company agents that they have a court order not to purge Murderbot’s memory as is standard after a mission. As they walk through the station’s crowded center ring, with shops, offices, and restaurants, Murderbot realizes that no one is looking at it: in its uniform, it blends in with the humans: “It hit me that I was just as anonymous in a crowd of humans who didn’t know each other as I was in my armor, in a group of other SecUnits” (144). This is the epiphany that allows Murderbot to move forward in life without its armor.
Reporters crowd them when they reach the hotel, but Pin-Lee says they are not taking any questions. Murderbot shoves one of the reporters who gets too close to Pin-Lee out of habit, but it is careful not to hurt him. At the hotel, they meet Mensah, who tells Murderbot about the new contract. On Preservation, Murderbot will be a free agent, off inventory and without armor, free to do whatever it wants. She suggests that Murderbot pursue educational opportunities.
That night, Murderbot goes to the work zone and steals a surveyor uniform. It boards a cargo transport and tells it that it is a “happy servant bot who needed a ride to rejoin its beloved guardian” (147). Murderbot offers to share its media feed with the cargo ship, which is also a bot. Despite Murderbot’s affection for Mensah, it decides to leave the team because it wants to make its own decisions. The last lines of the chapter address Mensah as “you,” implying that the whole narrative is Murderbot’s parting note explaining to Mensah why it is choosing to leave.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
Murderbot toys with the idea of abandoning PreservationAux throughout the novel, but it is not until the mission is over and the team is safe that Murderbot can separate from them with a clear conscience. Even though it has come to like and respect Mensah, those feelings are not enough for it to accept life under her—or anyone else’s—guardianship. Murderbot’s interactions with the team aid its decision to exercise autonomy, but they do not produce the emotional bonds for which the team strives. The team’s attempts to bond with Murderbot have conflicting effects. On one hand, once Murderbot’s autonomy is revealed, it no longer must pretend to have a functioning governor module, and in that respect at least, it can relax. On the other hand, Murderbot’s desire as an autonomous agent is to limit its interactions with humans and avoid work. For most of the novel, Murderbot believes it needs to wear its armor to maintain its façade to avoid uncomfortable interactions and maintain its personal space. In Chapter 8, it realizes that it can remain anonymous in a crowd, blending in with the humans and augmented humans, allowing it to go off on its own with the understanding that it can be fully autonomous and fully anonymous, two traits that seemed irreconcilable during its time with the Preservation group. Though Murderbot understands human relationships, it does not want to be in one. It prefers the people in its serials to real-life humans because it can participate in their social activities and private lives voyeuristically without engaging in anxiety-producing interactions.
The plot’s climax is when Murderbot breaks formation to save Mensah from the emergency beacon’s blast. It risks ruining the mission because it cannot bear the thought of Mensah getting hurt. The scene echoes the novel’s inciting incident, in which Murderbot uses its emotions rather than programming during its rescue mission in the crater. Murderbot’s emotional connection with Mensah makes its final departure even more poignant. In its letter, Murderbot calls Mensah its “favorite human” (150). They have formed a special bond, and Murderbot admires Mensah for her leadership and intelligence. But Murderbot’s desire for true freedom—the freedom from expectations—outweighs its desire to maintain the relationships it has forged. Even the threat of disappointing Mensah cannot keep Murderbot from pursuing its freedom.
Chapter 8 completes the novella’s worldbuilding, setting up the rest of the Murderbot Diaries. All Systems Red leaves some details about Corporation Rim a mystery. Locations such as the habitat, planetary surface, and company station are only described in enough detail to guide the reader through the current storyline. This technique is effective for the opening book in a series because the world will unfold in greater detail in the subsequent books. The end of All Systems Red sets up the following book in the Murderbot Diaries, Artificial Condition, in which Murderbot travels to the site of its mining expedition on which it malfunctioned and murdered 54 humans. Artificial Condition continues the themes of the struggle to form relationships and the nature of robot autonomy in a world under the company’s control.
