Overse

> *“That’s strange,” Overse said softly. “Were they trying to protect the colony? Or just their investment?”
> “You just like a mystery,” Arada told her, most of her attention on the report.
> “I like mysteries in fiction, not in our lives,” Overse retorted.*
> (Network Effect)
>
>

**Overse** is a scientist working with PreservationAux. She and Arada are marital partners, and later she works with the survey that meets the events of Network Effect.

## Biography

Overse is a scientist from the polity of the Preservation Alliance. She and Arada are marital partners, and they have family on the planet nearest to Preservation Station. They're both close friends with Ratthi.

Overse is a member of the PreservationAux survey team when large fauna from the surveyed planet attacks her team. It's unspecified what her original duties on the team are, but after the attack she takes shifts as a pilot and copilot with Mensah and Pin-Lee, she helps the team analyze data, and she's certified as a field medic.

The survey gets worse when they discover that another survey team on the same planet has fallen silent (DeltFall), and PreservationAux sends an away-team to investigate the cause. Overse joins Mensah, Ratthi, and Murderbot on the away-team. The away-team comes under attack at the remote habitat, and when they come back, the team is forced to evacuate their own habitat not long after.

While they're on the run, one of the ways Overse helps is to set up remote sensing equipment at their impromptu camp to trigger if their area were to be scanned. They evade capture, and in the end the team is able to trigger GreyCris' emergency beacon and call for help, leading to their rescue.

After the events of All Systems Red, Overse and Arada go back to Preservation. They make appearances at the end of Exit Strategy, reuniting with the team after Mensah's rescue and the incident with the gunship. From there Arada and Overse travel planetside to visit their family, before returning to Preservation Station to finish their PreservationAux survey's reports with their team. (Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory.) From there she and Overse become swept up planning an upcoming survey expedition, spending time at the (planetside) FirstLanding university to do this.

The survey covers an independent site outside the Corporation Rim. Towards the end of the survey, their sea research facility is attacked by raiders. Overse preps and launches the (mobile) sea research facility as soon the raiders' kidnapped hostage is safe, and they're all able to escape and re-dock with their base-ship.

They just barely make it back to Preservation pace when ART, captured and controlled by 'Targets' (lost colonists and targetControlSystem, kidnaps Murderbot, Amena, and everyone in the facility safepod when it attaches to ART's hull (Overse, Arada, Ratthi, and Thiago). Eventually they're all able to regroup, and they agree (under duress) to help ART rescue its kidnapped crew. They succeed, despite the many detours and dangers this entails, and towards the end of Network Effect they're able to meet with an envoy from Preservation, reuniting with their friends and going back home.

## Personality

Overse is friendly, kind, and protective of her friends. She doesn't reach out to others the same way Arada does, but she's nonetheless sensitive: when Arada doesn't realize that the DeltFall survey team could be dead, Overse gently explains it. When Ratthi pushes Murderbot to talk about its feelings, she chases him off. When Gurathin goads Murderbot into threatening him, Overse helps fend him off with more explanations.

Overse was raised on a peaceful, generous polity, but she's less idealistic than Arada. The fact that she has the insight to explain things the way she does means she's quick to make the connections to these darker sides of the Corporation Rim. She's also suspicious enough to see danger that Arada and Ratthi don't, arguing with impulsive decisions such as agreeing to Barish-Estranza's offer for a conference, or Ratthi's use of the sea facility's intercom to argue for Murderbot's personhood in the middle of a hostage situation. Furthermore, when Arada agrees to a conference with Barish-Estranza and finds herself having to treat Murderbot like an object, Overse takes her aside for some last minute coaching.

Murderbot notes that she "never panics".

## Physical Appearance

Overse is an unaugmented human.

When **Overse** and the others on Arada's survey team are kidnapped by ART she wears an EVAC suit in her facility's safepod. Later, Murderbot points out that Overse is wearing Perihelion crew clothing (a T-Shirt). Perihelion uniforms are blue. The standard PreservationAux survey uniform is grey.

## Official Art

The Murderbot Diaries has an illustration of an offscreen moment in Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory where Murderbot, realizing that Mensah has been accosted by an unwanted reporter, rushes to her rescue. Ratthi says afterwards, “SecUnit jumped over my head!”, and when Mensah left the group Arada's bare feet had been in Overse's lap. Arada, Bharadwaj, Gurathin, Murderbot, Overse, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi were all present in this scene.

## References

1. ↑ "*...The weapons in question were just poppers, and the human was Overse who never panicked, but still.*" Chapter 15, Network Effect.