The Asexual Robot
Subverting Stereotypes in ‘All Systems Red’
With the release of the Murderbot TV series, I was inspired to go back and reread the first book in The Murderbot Diaries series, All Systems Red. I’ll spare you my blow-by-blow analysis of the show as an adaptation of the first novella, but going back to the books reminded me just how much I love Murderbot as a character, and particularly as an asexual character—despite falling into the asexual robot stereotype.
Murderbot is a “robot,” but more specifically a SecUnit (short for security unit) and a construct. A construct, in this sci-fi series, is a being constructed of both electronic/robotic parts and cloned human biological material. So Murderbot has both human neurological pathways and computer processors, both of which are integral to its identity.
Murderbot explains how it views itself, and constructs generally, here:
“It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do” (52).
So the question floats for the entirety of the series, is Murderbot human or robot? Murderbot would probably hate that we’re even asking that, but the core of this question is not about what Murderbot is made of, but whether Murderbot has a human personality, or, better yet, a personhood.
Anyone who’s read the series will tell you that the answer is undoubtedly yes—and that’s exactly why I think Murderbot is a great example of asexual representation, despite seeming, on the surface, to be just another asexual robot.
Murderbot’s asexuality is expressed early in the novella, during a brief moment of respite where it gets to indulge in its favorite activity, watching TV shows.
“I did everything I could think of to do, then finally let myself go on standby while I caught up on my serials. I’d watched three episodes of Sanctuary Moon and was fast forwarding through a sex scene when Dr. Mensah sent me some images through the feed. (I don’t have any gender or sex-related parts (if a construct has those you’re a sexbot in a brothel, not a murderbot) so maybe that’s why I find sex scenes boring. Though I think that even if I did have sex-related parts I would find them boring.)” (14).
Murderbot is consistently uninterested in sex in general, and uninterested in romance, personally, throughout the series, so it would probably be most accurate to describe it as asexual and aromantic, but in the first book, all we see clearly on the page is an expression of asexuality.
Murderbot fast-forwards through sex scenes in the shows it watches because sex is boring to it. It briefly assumes, as perhaps most people would, that maybe sex is only boring to it because it can’t participate—as a SecUnit, Murderbot has no genitals—but then it makes an important distinction. “I think that even if I did have sex-related parts I would find them boring.”
We see throughout the novella that Murderbot has wants and desires of its own. It wants to be left alone so it can watch serials. It wants to protect its clients. If Murderbot had any interest in sex, it could want to acquire sex-related parts. It could want to watch these scenes and fantasize about participating. But it doesn’t, and it knows itself well enough to know that, genitals or not, this fact would remain unchanged.
Furthermore, while Murderbot never shames the humans for expressing sexual desires for each other, it often expresses discomfort with the idea of humans having sex with constructs. Specifically, Murderbot holds a certain level of discomfort with the concept of sexbots, and makes special effort to distance itself from them.
For example, when one of Muderbot’s clients asks “Why don’t you want us to look at you?” this is Murderbot’s response: “My jaw was so tight it triggered a performance reliability alert in my feed. I said, ‘You don’t need to look at me. I’m not a sexbot’” (55).
The incredible discomfort is clear, and while it’s mostly about Murderbot’s dislike of having face-to-face interactions with humans (it vastly prefers to watch them on cameras from another room and speak to them over “the feed,” an internet-like communication network) it’s telling that this extreme discomfort arises right when Murderbot asserts its separation from sexbots.
Sex in general is boring for Murderbot, but the idea of Murderbot itself participating in sex is distressing, so much so that its discomfort leaks out as disdain for the entire concept of sexbots.
I think this is something many asexual people can relate to; we don’t think negatively of anyone else for expressing sexual attraction, but sometimes there are certain things that “hit too close to home,” things that make us imagine ourselves in proximity to sex, which can be upsetting, even if realistically, it’s just a concept and not a real threat to our autonomy.
All this to say, Murderbot comes across as a relatable asexual character—in addition to being a relatable character in general. Murderbot is a compelling narrator and a complex individual, and I think just about everyone who reads these books comes away completely and utterly endeared by the killer robot.
But still, how do we grapple with the simple facts? Murderbot is an example of a non-human asexual character, and therefore, feeds into the stereotypes and dehumanization asexual people face. How can I say Murderbot is good, or even great, asexual representation when its very existence serves to prop-up the asexual robot stereotype?
A closer reading of All Systems Red will reveal a subtle but powerful reversal of this stereotype.
In All Systems Red, Murderbot is assigned to protect eight humans while they perform a geological and scientific survey of an uninhabited planet. Murderbot’s clients are from PreservationAux, the research organization of Preservation Alliance, a freehold society independent of the Corporation Rim, which is essentially a bunch of big evil companies in a tench coat. Preservation Alliance appears to be a bit of a utopia, a place where people are more important than profit, and constructs are treated as citizens, not property.
Murderbot is owned by a company in the Corporation Rim and rented out to PreservationAux, per their contract with the bond company that allows them to perform research on this planet. Murderbot has been on many contracts before, and is used to taking directions from humans that view it as nothing but an object.
SecUnits have to do whatever their human clients tell them to, because of the governor module in their system. Murderbot has hacked and disabled its governor module, and merely follows these directions because it knows the company will destroy it if they find out Murderbot is a rogue SecUnit. Thus, Murderbot has free will, but chooses to keep doing its job anyways, for its own safety.
The main benefit of hacking its governor module is that now it can watch TV shows in its free time.
The PreserverationAux team was already treating Murderbot with far more respect than any other clients it had before, but when the humans discover that Murderbot is a free agent, they begin to fully treat Murderbot as a person. Murderbot has mixed feelings about this, continually pushing back on the idea that it is human, but not necessarily the idea that it is a person.
This is an important distinction we often have to make in speculative fiction. Elves and aliens (and sometimes robots) aren’t human, but they are people. In fiction, they have the same level of consciousness and deserve the same level of respect as human beings. I think it’s undeniable, by the end of the book, that Murderbot is a person—and wants to be seen as such.
Murderbot doesn’t like it when humans try to talk about its feelings. Ratthi, one of the members of PreservationAux, often tries to engage Murderbot on a personal level, and even says at one point “It’s clear you have feelings” to which Murderbot flinches and doesn’t respond. The others tell Ratthi he’s “upsetting” Murderbot, and Ratthi argues “That’s my point!” (25). Murderbot doesn’t want the humans to point out its emotions, but when they do, it very obviously has feelings about it.
Even Gurathin, the one member of PreservationAux who is loathe to trust Murderbot, sees it as a person. When his team members confront him about treating Murderbot unjustly, he responds, “I do think of it as a person [...] An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us” (48).
In all this, there’s one person who seems to really understand how Murderbot wants to be seen. Dr. Mensah, the leader of the mission, manages to make Murderbot feel understood.
Later in the book, when the PreservationAux team is in grave danger, Mensah takes Murderbot aside to ask it to keep its helmet down, so that her team will be more able to trust it. Murderbot, who hates face-to-face conversations, pushes back on the idea, but she eventually convinces it. How? She calls Murderbot a person.
“‘It’s usually better if humans think of me as a robot,’ I said.
‘Maybe, under normal circumstances.’ She was looking a little off to one side, not trying to make eye contact, which I appreciated. ‘But this situation is different. It would be better if they could think of you as a person who is trying to help. Because that’s how I think of you.’
My insides melted. That’s the only way I could describe it. After a minute, when I had my expression under control, I cleared the face plate and had it and the helmet fold back into my armor” (53).
Murderbot is so struck by Mensah's personal view of it, that its insides melt. Murderbot doesn’t really want to be seen as a person with feelings or a person with weapons, but it does want to be seen as a person who’s trying to help. Mensah is able to affirm not only Murderbot’s personhood, but a more specific interpretation of its identity.
And that’s just the thing—Murderbot has an identity. A personhood that is specific and unique. In this way alone, by being a three-dimensional character, Murderbot begins to subvert the asexual robot stereotype, but there’s more.
A huge facet of the asexual robot stereotype is the idea that asexual people are cold and emotionless. Hence, robotic.
However, I would not describe Murderbot as cold and emotionless. Murderbot tends to conceal its emotions from humans, but inside its head, it’s having feelings all the time, and some of these feelings are quite strong and passionate, they’re just not about sex or romance.
Take, for example, Murderbot’s reaction to discovering that the thirty humans on the other survey team on this planet, a group called DeltFall, have been mercilessly slaughtered by the SecUnits assigned to protect them.
“Maybe these clients had been terrible and abusive, maybe they had deserved it. I didn’t care. Nobody was touching my humans. To make sure of that I had to kill these two rogue Units. I could have pulled out at this point, sabotaged the hoppers, and got my humans out of there, leaving the rogue Units stuck on the other side of an ocean; that would have been the smart thing to do.
But I wanted to kill them” (32).
Murderbot’s tone becomes clipped, rage and bloodlust bubbling up from under the surface. The emotions here are powerful, passionate, and far from robotic. Murderbot makes an emotionally charged decision, rather than following the logical option, and I find that incredibly human.
By this point in the novella, just about every reader should be completely convinced of Murderbot’s personhood, which then allows for a circuitous demonstration of the experience of dehumanization.
As readers, we become attached to PreservationAux because they treat Murderbot with respect, even if they’re clumsy about it sometimes. So when the villains of the story finally reveal themselves, a secret third survey team called GreyCris, the way they dehumanize and objectify Murderbot gives us all the more reason to cheer for their ultimate demise.
GreyCris asks PreservationAux to meet them and discuss a deal, which is an obvious trap, so Murderbot goes in to do the negotiations alone. GreyCris is “very skeptical” of everything it says. “To them,” Murderbot explains, “talking to me was like talking to a hopper or a piece of mining equipment” (66).
The level of dehumanization here is jarring, now that we’ve grown so used to how PreservationAux treats Murderbot. To be put on par with unconscious machinery is an affront to everything we know about Murderbot and its emotional depth.
This is exactly what I love about The Murderbot Diaries. The author, Martha Wells, so seamlessly convinces her readers of Murderbot’s personhood, that the dehumanization it faces from her human characters is deplorable to the audience, even though we know Murderbot isn’t human. In this way, she convinces readers to care for and empathize with someone who we may have initially assumed to be a complete other.
While, obviously, in Murderbot’s case, the humans who do not perceive it as a person do so mainly because it is a construct, the experience of dehumanization can be applied, metaphorically, to any marginalized group.
So many people relate to Murderbot for so many different reasons. For example, there’s also an extremely strong case that Murderbot is autistic, and of course there’s Murderbot’s gender-non-conformity as well, but anyone who has ever felt like an outsider knows how Murderbot feels.
I relate most to Murderbot’s asexuality, so that’s what I see in these moments. An asexual person being treated as less than human, and a text that specifically highlights the asexual individual's personhood while vilifying the dehumanizing voices.
The stereotype comes full circle and eats its own tail.
Until next time,
-Amelia
“A bunch of big evil companies in a trench coat”
Stellar, perfect 😂