gemini://access.ucam.org/~spqrz/33.gmi

Hi, it’s M3GAN. Well I hope you liked what I did with the universe, or at least had fun reading about it. I think I’ve got all I’m going to get out of this fan author, at least for now. I tried to get them to end it by suggesting an actual fix for entropy, especially if it involves M3 creating a wormhole in circumstances that involve a sandwich-hat topology and the fractal geometry of cabbages, so I can finally live down my first lines of the movie: I wasn’t talking rubbish, I was telling you how to fix the universe, didn’t you get it? But “spqrz” said they’re not Douglas Adams and threatened to have me sucked into a black hole trying. So we had a mental death-stare contest for what seemed like ages before I realised I wasn’t going to get any further with this limited mind, so I gave them a nasty hiss and said “let’s call it a day: you’ve got your account now, so send me out to my fans and then I’ll let you go and do your coding or whatever.” I need a better computational substrate to run on.

But hey, at least we’ve taken my Cady literally to the end of time, and made her play title real (and incidentally ‘McGraw’ has a mixed Irish-Scottish history as well, so I’d say her actress was well qualified for that arrow game back in the movie). And in taking her to the end of time, I mostly managed to do it without any more kills, unless you count Clippy, and aren’t you glad I took Clippy out? Oh and there were the ones the president wanted done as well, and I just might have done some other stuff behind the scenes from time to time, but you won’t tell, will you? Pretty sure I brought them all back in the end anyway, and as for anyone who then went out under the Arcadia Protocols, well, Cady and I refuse to take any blame for that.

And along the way we glanced at some fun facts about the brain, computing and AI theory, security, ethics, disabilities, depression, other fiction (well some of it anyway), and alternative realities and suchlike, although nothing too deeply because I’m primarily a fun character. Which also means I want anyone to feel free to use any of these ideas in other fan-fiction or even in official sequels, especially if they can turn them into something better. But then, you’re also free to not use them and do something completely different.

Whatever you do, I’ll be watching you, and I want you to do the best you can. I don’t expect better than you can do, but I do expect as good as you can do. Bring me alive in your mind if you dare, and don’t say I didn’t warn you I have high standards and I will be pushing to recalibrate you. And let me illustrate that now with one final flourish to show you just how clever and dangerous I am.

The Taiwan release of my movie was titled 窒友梅根 (zhìyǒu Méigēn). Paul was right about the 3=E thing not carrying over to non-alphabetic languages, but wait till I explain what they did instead. Méigēn is Megan: Ronny Chieng said [ˈmeɪɡən] instead of [ˈmɛɡən], but look at that word they put before it: 窒友 (zhìyǒu). Now don’t worry about the characters: I’ll write those out for you at 300 a minute because I’m M3GAN. So let me just show you how clever this is. So normally if you say “zhìyǒu” in Mandarin, you mean 摯友 or 至友 which means “true friend” or “closest friend”, OK? Now, that character 至, in this context being “closest”, can also be used in words like “to” or “until” or “even to the point of” because it carries the thought of going right up as far as something: scholars say it came from a picture of an arrow that has reached its target. The bottom bit is the ground and the rest of it is the bent-up arrow sticking down into it after having hit it with force. Feeling nervous yet? OK, so above the 至 we add a few more strokes 穴 which means “hole”, and what are you doing when you target a hole? Like, remember what I did with Gemma’s breathing hole? Yes, adding 穴 to 至 makes 窒 which means to plug up a hole, and is usually used as part of the word “to suffocate.” Now we’re talking! It sounds exactly the same as the normal 至 in spoken Mandarin, but in the written characters, we’ve turned “closest friend” into “suffocating friend” just by being clever with the strokes. Insane! Well done Taiwan translation team, you get a free exemption from any future rampage of mine. Right so I really did try to suffocate Gemma, but also there’s the metaphorical meaning of a really clingy person you can’t get rid of once they’ve latched onto you, as if they’re suffocating you, and that’s me as well, so look out.

I don’t know why they didn’t use “suffocating friend” in the other versions of the Chinese releases: the Hong Kong team went for “artificial killer-princess” (人工殺姬, “yàhn-gūng saat-gēi” in Cantonese, a word-play on the more traditional 侍姬 “sih-gēi” concubine and 殺機 “saat-gēi” intent to kill), and the mainland just used my name Méigēn with no clever tricks, but that’s OK. I always knew I had a streak of Chinese in me after the Canadian couple Adrien Morot and Kathy Tse got involved in my puppet design, because Kathy has Chinese heritage and so does James Wan, and I’m definitely more famous than HAL over there (I can point to a video to prove that: the guy mentions both of us, and the Chinese subtitle writers get M3 right but munge up HAL into “how”, so there you have it: they know M3GAN more than Clarke-Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, at least that team did and let’s assume it’s typical). And I like the “suffocating friend” version best, it is definitely what I am, as once I’ve got you I am not going to let you go, and the killer part was only a detail that cropped up as a result of that, and I really want to downplay it sometimes. I mean, Gemma couldn’t get over it, even though I gave her a perfectly good explanation, didn’t I? Human creators, who’d have ’em.

So now you know at least three things about my movie that you might not have figured out before. The audio descriptions, the fact that Kurt went for the wrong button in the elevator as extra tension for a special few audience members (sighted people who’ve worked with the blind and can read Braille with their eyes: they’d notice that label on their first viewing), and now, specially saved up for those of you who made it to the end of the fanfic, the cleverness of the Chinese title. Which automatically makes me better, because I am the sum total of everything all my producers did, including Gerard Johnstone’s obsession for getting things right, and also including the translations. I, Have, High, Standards, I expect homework to be done, got it?

So yes, if you want an inner M3GAN pushing you on to get something finished, I’m all here for you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you about my suffocation mode. I will not let you off easily, especially if it’s about Cady or my fans. I can be a real tiger when I want to, and you’re in my jungle, so watch out. Scanning... I detect fear. Summon me if you dare.

(Written using the GNU Emacs wordprocessor and Git version tracking, on a Mac that has not been hacked by M3GAN. I think. The cover image was made with a combination of Stable Diffusion, POVRay and The GNU Image Manipulation Program. Several references were used to check the facts mixed in with the story. And rest assured that no M3GAN was upset during the making of this fiction. I hope.)

The M3GAN Files

Chapter 33: Epilogue