Rogue Protocol

GrayCris is the all-powerful corporation that runs society in the Corporation Rim (though several other corporate entities also hold power, albeit considerably less than what GrayCris exerts). GrayCris is shadowy and omnipresent in the novel. Its broad control means that its impacts are felt no matter what a Corporation Rim resident does, but it never appears in the text via any character or through any specific policy. Rather, the threats and power of GrayCris remain amorphous—which adds tension to the text, as readers (and Murderbot itself) never know when or how GrayCris’s power will manifest.

Despite its distance from the main action of the text, GrayCris serves as an overarching antagonist, one that, the text suggests, might be too powerful to defeat. Rather than necessarily seeking to broadly overthrow GrayCris, therefore, Murderbot’s aim is to prove specific acts of villainy by the company, though it plans to leave the question of what to do with this information to Dr. Mensah. Murderbot’s orientation toward GrayCris directs its moral projects: Though it opposes the corporation and fights against it, it does not put itself into a “chosen one” role that is uniquely poised to undermine GrayCris’s hostile regime.