Work Text:
"Performance reliability" is such a useful concept for an author to convey a character's functioning, especially when that character has a physiology that might make it difficult to tell what constitutes a bad injury. Murderbot is especially interesting because we get to see its performance reliability score drop or rise in response to purely emotional events as well.
I pulled together all canon references to it (including the 'performance capacity' that is incongruously used in Artificial Condition) to look at what it all means. I'll list the canon entries and then some thoughts at the end.
Mentions:
- All Systems Red - 5 (15.9 percent mentions per 1000 words)
- Artificial Condition - 6 (18.5 percent mentions per 1000 words)
- Rogue Protocol - 1 (plus one due to Miki that I mention but don't count) (2.8 percent mentions per 1000 words)
- Exit Strategy - 3 (plus 3 mentions of 'Cognitive Function' that I mention but don't count) (8.4 percent mentions per 1000 words)
- Network Effect - 22 (18.9 percent mentions per 1000 words)
- Fugitive Telemetry - 1 (2.6 percent mentions per 1000 words)
- Compulsory - 1 (66.5 percent mentions per 1000 words)
All Systems Red
Page 10
PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 60% AND DROPPING
[From earlier: I had lost the armor on my left arm and a lot of the flesh underneath, but my nonorganic parts were still working.]
Page 11
MedSystem helpfully informed me that my performance reliability was now at 58 percent and dropping, which was not a surprise. I could definitely repair in eight hours, and probably mostly regrow my damaged organic components, but at 58 percent, I doubted I could get any analysis done in the meantime. So I set all the security feeds to alert me if anything tried to eat the habitat and started to call up the supply of media I'd downloaded from the entertainment feed. I hurt too much to pay attention to anything with a story, but the friendly noise would keep me company.
Page 13
PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39%. STASIS INITIATED FOR EMERGENCY REPAIR SEQUENCE
Page 42
So I grabbed the hand weapon lying on the seat, turned it toward my chest, and pulled the trigger.
PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 10% AND DROPPING. SHUTDOWN INITIATED
Page 60
He said, "Why don't you want us to look at you?"
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."
Artificial Condition
Page 12 -
The tension that had kept me down to 96 percent capacity eased; a murderbot’s life is stressful in general, but it would be a long time before I got used to moving through human spaces with no armor, no way to hide my face.
Page 32 - after the surgery
I came back online to find I was at 26 percent capacity, but the percentage was climbing slowly. Bands of pain circled my knee and elbow joints, so intense I couldn’t process it. My human skin itched. And I was leaking. I hate that.
Page 36 – Contemplating posing as an augmented human security consultant
My crew hires consultants for every voyage. ART was impatient that I wasn't complimenting it yet on its great idea. The procedure is simple.
"For humans and augmented humans, yes." I was stalling. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human. I know that's what altering my configuration was supposed to be for, but I had imagined it as taking place from a distance, or in the spaces of a crowded transit ring. Interacting meant talking, and eye contact. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping.
It will be simple, ART insisted. I'll assist you.
Also Page 36
As I walked away from the safety of ART’s lock, I dropped back down to 96 percent efficiency. I hit the station entertainment feeds for new downloads to try to calm down.
Page 65 – Ganaka Pit
There were ten of them lined up against the far wall, big smooth white boxes, the dim marker light gleaming off the scuffed surfaces. I didn't know why my performance reliability was dropping, why it was so hard to move. Then I realized it was because I thought the others were still in there.
Page 69 - Leaving Ganaka Pit
The tube ran out of power and died short of the access, but fortunately I was back up to 97 percent capacity by that time.
Rogue Protocol
Page 35
Trying not to sound nervous and/or enraged, I said, Miki, remember you said you wouldn't tell Don Abene about me.
I won't, Rin. Miki was so calm and complacent, my performance reliability dropped by 2 percent. I promised.
Page 74 - Note, this is Miki's performance reliability
It’s nice to be thanked. “Miki, damage report.”
“I am at eighty-six percent functional capacity.” It held up its arm stump. “It’s only a flesh wound.”
Exit Strategy
Page 11
It guided me to one of the empty vending booths, which was completely enclosed. Telling it to shut the privacy door was such a relief my performance reliability percentage went up half a point. The booth scanned my hard currency card and then offered a set of menus.
Page 78
One last thump on the barrier told me the Combat SecUnit wasn't happy about losing. My organic parts felt quivery, I had shrapnel stuck all over me, but I was still at 83 percent performance reliability. (It's good there's not a separate statistic for my mental performance reliability because I don't think even I would rate it as all that great at the moment.)
Page 89
I felt weird. Very weird. Very bad.
Performance reliability at 45 percent and dropping. Catastrophic failure —
I felt my body crumple, but I didn't feel myself hit the deck.
Page 92 and 98 - We get a new function, 'Cognition Level' at 55, 60, and 100%.
Network Effect
Page 44
"That's—" That's ART, I almost said on the feed, like an idiot.
It was so shocking and so weird, my performance reliability dropped and I lost circulation to my organic parts. And not weird = violating norms in an annoying way but weird = eerie, like in Farland Star Roads, the story arc with the haunted station with ghosts and time-shifting.
Page 50
I took the hit right in the side of my head and got body-slammed against the bulkhead.
Performance reliability catastrophic drop.
Shutdown.
Restart.
I was lying in a heap on the deck, a broken fragment of something grinding into my cheek. I knew I'd had an emergency shutdown. (I miss my armor all the time, but particularly at times like this.)
I need the organic parts inside my head, but they have much better shock absorption in there than inside a human skull. You can hit a SecUnit hard enough to make our performance reliability drop so fast and so low it triggers a temporary shutdown. (Operative word: temporary.) But it's really not a good idea. Not if you want to keep your internal organs inside your body and not smeared on the bulkheads of your stolen transport.
Oh, it's on now.
Page 51
Tinged with desperation, Amena said, "I can't do anything about that."
The rest of my parts were checking in as functional and my performance reliability was climbing. The temporary shutdown had flushed a lot of stress toxins secreted by my organic parts and I actually felt better.
Page 52
The doorway to the lounge where I'd detected Amena's voice was open, brighter light falling into the half-lit corridor. I meant to wait until I was back up to at least 90 percent performance reliability but I heard Amena say, "There's no weapon, you got the wrong ship." The fear in her voice was more obvious and I was suddenly in the room.
(Impulse control; I should try to write a code patch for that.)
Page 69
I felt something build in my chest. I pulled the recording of my conversations with ART, the way it said "my crew." It was bad enough that ART must be dead, it wasn't fair that the humans it had loved so much were dead, too.
I wanted to find a bunch more algae-smelling gray snotty assholes and kill the shit out of every single one.
A sudden 5 percent dip in performance reliability made my knees go shaky and I leaned on the cabin hatch. For twelve seconds it seemed like a good idea to slide all the way down to the deck and just stay there.
But I should get back to Amena.
Page 82
Sure, I'd had an emotional breakdown with the whole evisceration thing, but I was fine now, despite the drop in performance reliability. Absolutely fine. And I had to kill the rest of the Targets in the extremely painful ways I'd been visualizing.
Page 84
My performance reliability had leveled out at 89 percent. Not great, but I could work with it. I still hadn't identified the source of the drop. I'd taken multiple projectile hits without having that kind of steady drop.
Page 85
And I'd made her cry. Good job, Murderbot.
I knew I'd been an asshole and I owed Amena an apology. I'd attribute it to the performance reliability drop, and the emotional breakdown which I am provisionally conceding as ongoing rather than an isolated event that I am totally over now, and being involuntarily shutdown and restarted, but I can also be kind of an asshole. ("Kind of" = in the 70 percent–80 percent range.)
Page 101
Scout Two showed me the control area foyer, barely three meters ahead, was empty which meant I'd lost track of Target Four. I just had time to run back its video to see Target Four leave through the forward doorway. Then an energy/heat blast hit me from behind. It struck me in the lower back and I lost traction and fell forward and slid halfway across the deck toward the control area hatch.
My performance reliability dropped to 80 percent.
Page 107
I guess Amena had never seen a SecUnit hit with an energy weapon that caused them to lose 20 percent of the body mass on their back and expose their internal structure, because she seemed really upset.
I was losing all my inputs but there was one thing I had to say before the gurney got here. "ART," I said aloud, because ART could silence my feed if it wanted to. "You did this. You sent those assholes to kidnap my humans."
Of course not, ART said. I sent them to kidnap you. Then my performance reliability bottomed out and— Shutdown. Delayed restart.
Also Page 107
Now I was at 34 percent performance reliability and climbing steadily, lying on my side on ART’s medical platform. My jacket and deflection vest were gone and the surgical suite had cut away my shirt to get to the burned parts. I was sticky from all the leaky fluid and blood and parts falling off (yes, it’s just as disgusting as it sounds). But I didn’t feel nearly as bad as I had the last time I’d been here, when ART had altered my configuration.
Page 112
My performance reliability hit 60 percent and I could talk again. I said, "Fuck you, ART."
Amena leaned over the platform, watching me worriedly. "SecUnit, how are you doing?"
"I'm fine." Parts of the surgical suite were withdrawing and I could see her with my eyes now instead of just the drones. "Except that I'm being held prisoner by a giant asshole of a research transport."
Page 237
But by then the Targets were there, and they all started shooting at me. I couldn't get up. I shielded my head with my arms, and felt the projectiles going through the enviro suit but not the deflection fabric of the uniform ART had made for me. Then the fabric started to fail under all the impacts and this could be—
Performance reliability catastrophic drop.
Forced shutdown. No restart.
Page 257
2.0 didn't respond for a second. (Which was unusual because it had been responding almost as fast as I could complete a sentence.) Then it said, Diagnostics show structural damage and a sixty-eight percent performance reliability. That's not so bad, considering.
Page 258
I needed that processing space, especially with my performance reliability dropping, but what I didn't need was 2.0 forgetting its directive and turning on me, so everything it did to retain its self-awareness was great. It probably needed some code patches but I wasn't sure I could do it without ART, particularly now. I still had my pain sensors tuned down but the grinding in my knee joint was distracting and made me feel vulnerable and it just wasn't a good time to make changes to active killware.
Page 265
So, we had found targetControlSystem. Sweat was sticking my shirt to what was left of my back and my performance reliability had dropped another three percent.
Page 269
Uh. It was saying the targetControlSystem wasn't reacting to me because it read my presence as non-hostile. It thought I was a Target, an infected colonist.
I couldn't respond. SecUnits aren't supposed to be able to go into shock like humans but my performance reliability had dropped another 5 percent, which is kind of a lot all at once.
I'm not in network, I told the central system. I'm not infected.
2.0 said, Uh. I think maybe you are. I read diagnostic anomalies. Hold on.
Page 273
My performance reliability dropped but the spike of fear upped my reaction time and I whacked TargetContact across the head with my table part. The impact staggered it back but still didn't damage the body. The effort I put into the swing made my wrecked knee joint give way and I hit the floor again.
I needed a bigger weapon. I needed help. I needed to get the fuck out of here.
Page 276
When I restarted again (and I don't know if I'm underselling it but these rapid performance reliability drops and restarts were not pleasant or fun) I was still on the deck but surrounded by a bunch of unknown humans.
Page 280
So once the humans had gotten me put back together enough to be stable and to stop my performance reliability from dropping, we had to move my active consciousness into an isolation box so ART could get rid of the contaminated code string. I say "we" but I was mostly just along for the ride.
Page 281 – After ART asks it to go on a mission with it
I didn't know if I trusted ART's humans or if I even wanted to try. But no one had ever rescued me before except Dr. Mensah, when she went into the DeltFall habitat after me, and ART had been willing to wipe a colony off a planet for me, and watching the security vid of a group of humans strategizing how best to get me out of there was ... a lot, for me, considering the whole reason for me/constructs being created was so I/we could be abandoned in an emergency.
ART said, I know you have difficulty making decisions so you don't need to give your answer right away.
I do not have difficulty making decisions, ART, you're full of— I said, but it had already dropped me back in my body. And of course, my performance reliability crashed immediately and I had a forced shutdown.
Page 282
Amena ... Amena had carried a chair over next to the platform, and was browsing through the Pansystem University catalog in the feed. I said, "I'm back online."
She smiled. "I'll warn everybody."
I sat up. The MedSystem had finished what the humans had started and my performance reliability was up around 98 percent. I was wearing the kind of soft smock thing that injured humans wear, but my drones spotted my clothes, cleaned and recycler-repaired, folded on a gurney. Before I could think about it too much, I said, "ART asked me to join its crew for a mission."
Fugitive Telemetry
Page 25
Mensah had refused to consider the public safety notice, but in one of the stupid meetings with Indah she had asked, "What exactly would this feed ID say?"
It gave me a 1.2 percent performance reliability drop. I tapped Pin-Lee's feed and sent to her, Make a legal thing so I don't have to do that.
Compulsory
Page 4
Elane tried to pull Sekai away, but she turned back and stumbled toward me. "Thank you," she said. It was like she could see me through my visor, which was a terrifying enough thought that my performance reliability dropped 3 percent.
And back to me! Let's try a table:
10% - After shooting itself in the chest and all damage from DeltFall excursion (followed by shutdown)
26% - Post-surgery, immediately tries to walk and fails
34% - Aware, but lying in the MedSystem fuming
39% - After worm attack, hopper trip, difficult Mensah conversation, and shivering in cubicle (followed by shutdown)
45% - After fighting off the killware (followed by shutdown)
58% - After worm attack and hopper trip
60% - Immediately after worm attack
60% - Can't talk until it reached this point in ART's MedSystem
68% - Structural damage, got shot to hell by gray people and thrashed by ag-bot, detached/reattached hand, suspended, abandonment trauma, etc.
80% - Blasted in lower back, can't stand, bleeding a lot, lost 20% body mass
83% - Shrapnel stuck all over it, couldn't walk unassisted
89% - After a 5% drop mourning ART's loss; multiple projectile hits in the past hadn't dropped it this low
90% - What it hoped to be before attacking the gray people
96% - No damage, but walking into a transit ring in disguise; at a different time, same - tension about people seeing its face but otherwise no damage
97% - Post Ganaka Pit, no damage
98% - After all repairs completed in ART's MedSystem
Unspecified changes:
- Jaw tightening can cause a performance reliability alert.
- Unspecified performance reliability drop from anxiety about impersonating an augmented human security consultant
- Being in Ganaka Pit caused an unspecified performance reliability drop.
- Seeing that it's ART who is attacking the water survey ship causes a drop and loss of circulation.
- A head strike and body slam into a wall caused a shutdown. Minutes or seconds later, performance reliability was climbing as it recovered.
Specific changes:
- Getting privacy in a clothes store raised performance reliability by 0.5%.
- Having to display a feed ID caused a 1.2% drop.
- Miki being cooperative caused a performance reliability drop of 2%.
- The idea of being seen through its opaque visor gave it a 3% drop.
- Finding targetControlSystem caused a 3% drop.
- Mourning ART's loss causes a 5% dip and a desire to slide down the wall.
- Finding out it was infected by alien contamination caused a 5% drop all at once.
It's interesting that there isn't a clear cut-off in when it shuts down. It seems to be somewhere between 35% to 60%. I'm not sure what 'performance' is measured from 0% to 35%. Is 0% dead? We saw it get down to 10% when it shot itself in the chest. At one point we get a 'Forced shutdown, no restart' but then it wakes up suspended, so, like, there had to have been a restart in there somewhere.
We do get an intriguing sequence at the end of Network Effect, where we have a report of 68% by 2.0. Following this, we have a drop of 3% from seeing targetControlSystem and 5% from discovering its likely now infected. Just these two drops would put it at 60%, which at one point was the threshold for being 'together' enough to speak. I suppose one could argue that Murderbot's behavior while being chased by targetControlSystem was not 'together'. It was panicked, flailing, and nearly shot its rescuer, so maybe there's some consistency after all.
We never get a 'X damage causes Y drop' situation, but we get a bunch of 'X emotional event causes Y drop', which given that its functional range is really 60-98%, a rise or fall of a few percent is definitely noticeable.
I would also like to point out it appears to top out at 98%. The best ART's MedSystem can do is get it to 98%, and that's at the conclusion of Network Effect, after it knows its humans, ART, and Three saved it, the contamination is gone, and it is safe.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments!