The novella “Rogue Protocol” by Martha Wells was published for the first time in 2018. It’s the third work of “The Murderbot Diaries” series and follows “Artificial Condition“.
Murderbot sees an interview with Dr. Mensah connected to GrayCris’ possible illegal activities and thinks it might find evidence in the terraforming installation around the planet Milu. Its journey is quite tiring because it always has to hide its identity and that’s also true once it arrives at its destination.
A team of humans led by Don Abene is on the installation to assess its status as part of the takeover process by another company. Murderbot decides to secretly follow them but must communicate with Miki, a robot who assists Don Abene’s team. The situation soon becomes complicated.
The third novella in the “The Murderbot Diaries” series reprises the adventures of the SecUnit that became autonomous. Like the previous ones, it’s not very long but the initial part is still rather slow because Murderbot talks about the problems it can encounter in its travels when it’s forced to deal with humans while it passes as an augmented human. This part is funny because all the protagonist’s sarcastic side emerges with its vitriolic judgments on most of the humans it meets.
Murderbot has no interest in putting itself at risk by facing danger but it’s looking for evidence of illegal activities conducted by GrayCris and this may lead it to violent confrontations. In “Rogue Protocol” it ends up following a team of humans who are assisted by Miki, a robot who is treated like a friend and considers them friends as well. For the protagonist, that’s surprising behavior for both humans and robots and it’s envious because it was normally treated like a tool.
Murderbot’s emotions and difficulty managing them is one of the themes of the series. Generally, they are emotions that arise from complicated interactions with humans but in this case, they emerge from seeing the interaction between Don Abene and Miki. The protagonist handles the new emotions it feels better than many humans although it has more trouble managing its interactions with humans than violent confrontations with other SecUnits or robots.
In this case, the complications for Murderbot come from the need to use subterfuge that doesn’t always work. It’s used to dealing with humans who view SecUnits as tools even after its experience with Dr. Mensah’s team, so it always tries to pass off as an augmented human when it has to interact with humans. “Rogue Protocol” is even more focused on the protagonist’s emotions and their developments than previous novellas.
“Rogue Protocol” has its share of action but it almost feels like an introspective story compared to the previous ones. Murderbot’s research leads it to face some unexpected ethical and moral dilemmas, as it points out. It’s constructed more than ever as a chapter of a larger story, and for some readers, this may be a flaw but it wouldn’t make sense to read it as an autonomous work. I continue to recommend this series to anyone who appreciates the themes that are developed with the food for thought it offers. It’s available on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
