SF: Firefly

[Admiral Canaris]

"I want them to die"

How about seeing that there's anything democratic to it all. Even in Wheddon's Buffy, with its authoritarian Mayor, they speak of elections and PR. In Star Wars, they tell of the Emperor disbanding the Senate (in Ep IV), etc.

oh I don't know, maybe for the same reason China and Japan didn't want to be each other's client state in the 20th century.

Neither of them was particularly democratic IIRC... A democracy doesn't go to war without good reason.

Using surgery to make the ultimate in elite agents even better. after all, can't outwit one of the Hands Of Blue (unless you have River, who was supposed to become one)

So not only do they vivisect people, they brainwash them into becoming government agents? It keeps getting worse... (Her parents would likely just receive a notification à la T-4: "Sorry, while in our custody, your daughter suffered pneumonia and died...")

there was only the one "Special Academy".

One's bad enough.

 

[Faeelin]

I don't recall that, though I only watched the series on TV and thus missed some episodes. But why do you bring it up?

Because it implies that freedom of religion (and Christianity) still exist.

Also, how many planets as the Feeration annihilated?

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Christianity

 

[arkham618]

Let's break down the observable facts about the Alliance on an episodic basis:

Serenity - Part 1: Mal and crew are conducting an illegal salvage when an Alliance cruiser detects Serenity's heat signature and closes to investigate. Wash triggers a remote decoy, and while the cruiser is distracted, Serenity flees.

Serenity - Part 2: Lawrence Dobson, an Alliance agent, knocks Shepherd Book unconscious as the clergyman is attempting to free him, then strikes him gratuitously once he is down; shoots Kaylee in the stomach; and threatens to arrest everyone aboard Serenity for aiding and abetting the Tams (whom no one knew were fugitives until the ship was already in deep space).

The Train Job: Mal and crew steal a shipment of medicine from a train carrying a company of Alliance troopers, who remain oblivious until the train arrives at its destination. (They later move on, without addressing the problem.) When Mal feels a twinge of guilt and returns the medicine, he is ambushed by the local sheriff, who lets him go.

Bushwhacked: Again, an Alliance cruiser stumbles across the Serenity during a salvage job. This time, the ship is boarded and the crew taken into custody. Simon and River hide on the outer hull of the ship while Mal and the others are interrogated. Meanwhile, a mutilated, catatonic survivor of a Reaver attack awakes in the cruiser's surgery and runs amok. The Alliance captain enlists Mal to track down and kill the man, which he does. In exchange, the captain lets Mal and his comrades go.

Ariel: Mal and crew infiltrate a core-world hospital in order to steal valuable drugs while Simon commandeers a sophisticated scanner, with which he hopes to diagnose River. During the job, Jayne betrays his crew mates for a promised reward, and is subsequently apprehended by Alliance police, along with Simon and River. The police commandant double-crosses Jayne in order to claim his reward, but is gruesomely killed (along with his entire detachment) by the "Hands of Blue", from whom Jayne, Simon, and River narrowly escape.

Trash: Mal and Saffron infiltrate the home of Durran Haymer, an ex-Alliance military officer, in order to steal the Lassiter, an antique laser pistol. Haymer reportedly capitalized on the chaos of the War to loot entire communities of antiquities and other valuables, often after exterminating their inhabitants with chemical weapons. At the time of the episode, he lives in quiet luxury in a floating private estate.

The Message: Mal and Zoe receive a package in the mail: the body of their wartime friend, Tracey. As it turns out, Tracey isn't truly dead, and he's carrying a small fortune in designer organs in his abdomen. An alliance officer named Womack is tracking Tracey in order to recover the organs. He discovers that his quarry has boarded Serenity after threatening first to imprison and then to immolate an innocent postmaster. Womack tracks Serenity to St. Albans, where he attempts to flush the ship from hiding using explosive charges. Aboard Serenity, Tracey has a falling-out with Mal and Zoe and winds up shot. Mal invites Womack onto the ship, where he is unnerved by Book's threats to expose his organ-legging operation, and decides to cut his losses and leave.

Serenity (film): Mal and crew uncover a buried Alliance plot to chemically pacify an entire planet, which backfired horribly, creating the Reavers. He exposes this debacle despite the opposition of a ruthless Alliance operative, who commits numerous atrocities while in pursuit of River Tam.

So...

One halfway-decent Alliance ship captain.

Several incompetent and/or corrupt Alliance "red shirts".

Three murderous Alliance agents.

Two sinister MIBs, who may be Alliance operatives, but could alternatively be agents of the (undeveloped) Blue Sun megacorporation.

And one comfortably retired Alliance war criminal.

 

[Keenir]

How about seeing that there's anything democratic to it all

all we saw of the Alliance was what the smugglers, criminals, and tourists would see -- so its not surprising that we didn't see any voting booths or other elements of the democratic process.

Neither of them was particularly democratic IIRC... A democracy doesn't go to war without good reason.

IT

WAS

A

EXAMPLE

So not only do they vivisect people, they brainwash them into becoming government agents?

'brainwashing'? you think only brainwashed people can be loyal government agents?

One's bad enough.

I agree. but if you think one's bad enough, why say there were many of them?

Serenity - Part 2: Lawrence Dobson, an Alliance agent, knocks Shepherd Book unconscious as the clergyman is attempting to free him, then strikes him gratuitously once he is down; shoots Kaylee in the stomach;

given that Book's not a clergyman (and knows more than most do about the inner workings of the Alliance), Book's presence very likely only added to Dobson's nervousness...which resulted in Kaylee getting shot (note to writers: when having a stand-off with guns drawn, make sure the doors are shut, so no innocents get shot)

and threatens to arrest everyone aboard Serenity for aiding and abetting the Tams (whom no one knew were fugitives until the ship was already in deep space).

okay, and what would you suggest? you need a suitably harsh punishment to threaten with, so you can later reduce the terms & not be seen as sniveling or wimpy.
(thanks a lot, Jayne)

at the time, there was no way for Dobson to know just how many people aboard Serenity were party to the Tams' actions.

During the job, Jayne betrays his crew mates for a promised reward, and is subsequently apprehended by Alliance police, along with Simon and River. The police commandant double-crosses Jayne in order to claim his reward, but is gruesomely killed

not that double-crossing is a good thing.

Trash: Mal and Saffron infiltrate the home of Durran Haymer, an ex-Alliance military officer
Haymer reportedly capitalized on the chaos of the War to loot entire communities of antiquities and other valuables, often after exterminating their inhabitants with chemical weapons. At the time of the episode, he lives in quiet luxury in a floating private estate.

and we have no way of knowing if the Alliance even knows that Haymer's alive, how much he was punished for his actions, or anything other than his crime.

An alliance officer named Womack is tracking Tracey in order to recover the organs. He discovers that his quarry has boarded Serenity after threatening first to imprison and then to immolate an innocent postmaster.

given that its an illegal operation he's working in, does it matter that he's an Alliance officer?

if someone's smuggling ivory in Africa, do you ask what country the smuggler is from?

no.

Mal invites Womack onto the ship, where he is unnerved by Book's threats to expose his organ-legging operation, and decides to cut his losses and leave.

an illegal smuggling operation? egads, is there no point those Alliance people won't stoop to? we can all be glad that the non-Alliance people never ever smuggle & never ever ever hurt witnesses, bystanders, or anyone else.

Serenity (film): Mal and crew uncover a buried Alliance plot to chemically pacify an entire planet,

nice wording, changing an effort to eliminate violence, to an act of NBC warfare.

And one comfortably retired Alliance war criminal.

nice to know the Brownshirts have no war criminals.

oh wait - that we know of.

 

[MerryPrankster]

It's Browncoats.

By calling them "Brownshirts," I suspect you're trying to link them with Nazis.

 

[arkham618]

given that Book's not a clergyman (and knows more than most do about the inner workings of the Alliance), Book's presence very likely only added to Dobson's nervousness...which resulted in Kaylee getting shot (note to writers: when having a stand-off with guns drawn, make sure the doors are shut, so no innocents get shot)

He was a monk of the Southdown Abbey on Persephone. Moreover, shepherd is repeatedly used as a synonym for preacher in the series. He is a member of the clergy, even if the terminology has changed in the intervening centuries. And his past does not negate his current status. There is no age limit for ordainment; one can live quite a colorful life before becoming a priest/minister/whatever (Benedict XVI was enrolled in the Hitler Youth as a boy), even today.

okay, and what would you suggest? you need a suitably harsh punishment to threaten with, so you can later reduce the terms & not be seen as sniveling or wimpy. (thanks a lot, Jayne)

The dude was a prick. Don't be contrary just to be contrary.

at the time, there was no way for Dobson to know just how many people aboard Serenity were party to the Tams' actions.

Except that he boarded along with Simon and Book. He watched the interactions between the crew and passengers, which were strained by Mal's need to hide Badger's erstwhile cargo. And everyone was getting uncomfortable vibes off of Simon -- well, except Kaylee. One could argue that Dobson was dense, but then he found the Tams, so he couldn't have been that unobservant.

not that double-crossing is a good thing.

Jayne got pinched because he was stupid. The cop was crooked, however, and the Hands were simply brutal. Those guys curdled the brains of police officers because they had talked to a teenage girl. And this was on a core world, not some anarchic frontier planet.

and we have no way of knowing if the Alliance even knows that Haymer's alive, how much he was punished for his actions, or anything other than his crime.

The dude was living in a floating mansion. Floating, as in the air. Haymer had a ring with an emergency transmitter built in that summoned a detachment of Alliance officers to his estate when he discovered Saffron and Mal stealing the Lassiter. The Alliance knew he was alive, and by the amount of heat he was able to bring down, he was still a player in its upper strata.

given that its an illegal operation he's working in, does it matter that he's an Alliance officer?

He was behaving like an FSB officer with ties to the Russian mafia. Russia is hardly a paragon of liberal democracy; it doesn't say much for the Alliance that its agents elicit such comparisons.

if someone's smuggling ivory in Africa, do you ask what country the smuggler is from?

Freelance smugglers don't usually have the resources of a superpower backing their operations. Womack flew around in his own ship and bombed the ravine in which Serenity was parked. How many smugglers have armed Harrier jump jets at their disposal? In this light, your argument strikes me as specious.

an illegal smuggling operation? egads, is there no point those Alliance people won't stoop to? we can all be glad that the non-Alliance people never ever smuggle & never ever ever hurt witnesses, bystanders, or anyone else.

What a crude rhetorical strategy, but whatever.

The Alliance presents itself as a civilizing influence in the 'Verse, but its grip on the outer worlds -- over which it fought a costly war to exercise control -- is so tenuous that its agents can engage in criminal activity with minimal repercussions, such that they are largely indistinguishable from the frontier riffraff they are meant to police. That does not say much for the Alliance.

nice wording, changing an effort to eliminate violence, to an act of NBC warfare.

They were trying to alter human psychology on a mass scale using a chemical substance injected directly into the atmosphere. Correcting for the impossible mission of banishing violence from the world (even absent human agency, the universe is a violent place -- stars explode, volcanoes erupt, predators consume their prey), one is left with the grandiose madness of a Utopian project to transform 30 million people into placid cattle.

nice to know the Brownshirts have no war criminals.

There are no saints in wartime. But then the Browncoats (that was a cute allusion to the Sturmabteilung, though) weren't trying to forcibly unite the known universe.

oh wait - that we know of.

Oh, wait, you were being glib, weren't you? You minx.

 

[Keenir]

It's Browncoats.

By calling them "Brownshirts," I suspect you're trying to link them with Nazis.

no, its more object recognition - the word "Brown" and a mental image of a shirt. (or a vest, that tends to blur into both shirts and coats)

though its not me who's trying to link anybody (fictional or not) to the Nazis.

 

[Keenir]

He was a monk of the Southdown Abbey on Persephone. Moreover, shepherd is repeatedly used as a synonym for preacher in the series. He is a member of the clergy,

allow me to quote one of the episodes: "that's no shepherd."

The dude was a prick.

I'm not arguing that.

Except that he boarded along with Simon and Book.
One could argue that Dobson was dense, but then he found the Tams, so he couldn't have been that unobservant.

given that everyone was pointing a gun at him, he probably got scared.

The cop was crooked, however, and the Hands were simply brutal. Those guys curdled the brains of police officers because they had talked to a teenage girl.

okay then. you're a Hands Of Blue, and you're tracking an escaped prisoner who can do everything that you can do. but you don't want the public to panic, which means you can't let anyone know that you or the prisoner even exist.

unfortunately, your prisoner has been found and handled (a tiny bit) by local enforcement, which means you now have a isecurity problem in addition to all that.

so what do you do?

(I'm curious; I don't like the Hands Of Blue's tactics either, but in that particular situation, I'll be durned if I can see a better way)

The dude was living in a floating mansion.

and Mal and Wash were tortured by a guy who had his own orbital station. big houses aren't uncommon in Firefly.

Floating, as in the air. Haymer had a ring with an emergency transmitter built in that summoned a detachment of Alliance officers to his estate when he discovered Saffron and Mal stealing the Lassiter. The Alliance knew he was alive, and by the amount of heat he was able to bring down, he was still a player in its upper strata.

the heat was the local police - it was, as you say, a mansion.

so how exactly do we know the Alliance knew he was alive?

He was behaving like an FSB officer with ties to the Russian mafia. Russia is hardly a paragon of liberal democracy; it doesn't say much for the Alliance that its agents elicit such comparisons.

why doesn't it say much for a corrupt Alliance officer to be like a corrupt Russian officer? (or for that matter, a corrupt American/Brazilian/French/etc) officer)

Freelance smugglers don't usually have the resources of a superpower backing their operations. Womack flew around in his own ship and bombed the ravine in which Serenity was parked. How many smugglers have armed Harrier jump jets at their disposal?

those who haven't been caught yet.
(maybe it only applies to ships and cars, I don't know)

The Alliance presents itself as a civilizing influence in the 'Verse, but its grip on the outer worlds -- over which it fought a costly war to exercise control -- is so tenuous that its agents can engage in criminal activity with minimal repercussions, such that they are largely indistinguishable from the frontier riffraff they are meant to police. That does not say much for the Alliance.

it doesn't say much for anybody. look in Chat from time to time - if people think they can get away with it, it doesn't matter if they're civilians, police, military, elected officials, anybody - they'll do things they wouldn't do back home.

They were trying to alter human psychology on a mass scale using a chemical substance injected directly into the atmosphere. Correcting for the impossible mission of banishing violence from the world (even absent human agency, the universe is a violent place -- stars explode, volcanoes erupt, predators consume their prey), one is left with the grandiose madness of a Utopian project to transform 30 million people into placid cattle.

after terraforming that many planets, 30 million people might seem like small potato(e)s.
*shrugs*

There are no saints in wartime. But then the Browncoats (that was a cute allusion to the Sturmabteilung, though)

see my other post.

Oh, wait, you were being glib, weren't you? You minx.

I figured I'd best place a qualifier in there.

 

[Admiral Canaris]

[A]fter terraforming that many planets, 30 million people might seem like small potato(e)s.
*shrugs*

Way I got it, it wasn't intended to end with that. It was a small-scale experiment in a galaxy of trillions (if we assume Firefly is that kind of setting), yes, but they planned to expand it to everyone. Drug the entire population into submission. That's way worse than any atrocity ever perpetrated by any RL totalitarianism. That the experiment went wrong and just turned those millions into 40K Chaos cultists was probably the best possible outcome.

A government that can permit these kinds of things would be among the worst in any TL (Kriff, it's exactly what the Draka did, eventually!).

 

[Admiral Canaris]

'brainwashing'? you think only brainwashed people can be loyal government agents?



I agree. but if you think one's bad enough, why say there were many of them?

1) Well, considering they never told Tam or anyone else that they intended her to be a government agent, that she was supposed to "disappear", and that they messed her mind up real good, I drew my own conclusions. Of course, there's nothing to say the Hands of Blue etc are brain-washed.

2) So I made a small mistake when referring to it. Come on, it was a couple'a years since I last watched the series...

 

[MerryPrankster]

allow me to quote one of the episodes: "that's no shepherd."

So Jubal Early knew something about Book's past. He was still a monk for an extended period, dresses like a Catholic priest, and in one of the comic books, even preaches a sermon.

Regardless of how bad he was before (I'm betting he's an Operative who got religion), he's a preacher now.

okay then. you're a Hands Of Blue, and you're tracking an escaped prisoner who can do everything that you can do. but you don't want the public to panic, which means you can't let anyone know that you or the prisoner even exist.

unfortunately, your prisoner has been found and handled (a tiny bit) by local enforcement, which means you now have a isecurity problem in addition to all that.

so what do you do?

(I'm curious; I don't like the Hands Of Blue's tactics either, but in that particular situation, I'll be durned if I can see a better way)

Get in their face, make a bunch of threatening noises about national security, take River and bolt. Heck, maybe get them really, really drunk so that when they come to, they think the whole business was a hallucination.

Your willingness to endorse extrajudicial murder scares me. Hopefully you're not planning to vote this year or planning on applying for a job with the ATF.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Way I got it, it wasn't intended to end with that. It was a small-scale experiment in a galaxy of trillions (if we assume Firefly is that kind of setting), yes, but they planned to expand it to everyone. Drug the entire population into submission. That's way worse than any atrocity ever perpetrated by any RL totalitarianism. That the experiment went wrong and just turned those millions into 40K Chaos cultists was probably the best possible outcome.

A government that can permit these kinds of things would be among the worst in any TL (Kriff, it's exactly what the Draka did, eventually!).

All hail A/C for his astuteness.

They think they can make people...better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.

Stick it to the Man!

 

[Keenir]

Way I got it, it wasn't intended to end with that. It was a small-scale experiment in a galaxy of trillions (if we assume Firefly is that kind of setting), yes, but they planned to expand it to everyone.

that's part of why I don't take much (if any) of the movie as canon. {I regard it as a sub-universe of the original}

the other reason is because we suddenly were told River was psychic -- when, during the series, Whedon had said that there were no aliens, no robots, no superpowers, etc.

Drug the entire population into submission.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask: once they do that, where does their population come from? from breeding with the human sheep?

He was still a monk for an extended period, dresses like a Catholic priest, and in one of the comic books, even preaches a sermon.

Regardless of how bad he was before (I'm betting he's an Operative who got religion), he's a preacher now.

there's a concept as old as civilization: undercover.

just because Dobson wasn't good at being undercover, doesn't mean that Book is equally incompetant.

Get in their face, make a bunch of threatening noises about national security, take River and bolt.

And you think that that'll keep those guys silent? they had no qualms about making a deal with known criminals - so how do the Hands Of Blue know the guys will keep quiet about this?
(there's an old saying: if you want to keep a secret, keep it to yourself. so what do you do if your secret runs into other people? just throw up your hands and don't bother to keep it secret?)


also, the Tams have taken up residence in a ship that - on more than one occasion - has crossed paths with the Reavers. and its canon that people (even victims) can join the Reavers.....do you really want the Reavers to gain a telepathic member that might well want revenge on your organization?

it'd make all prior Reaver actions look like one of Gandhi's protests.

Your willingness to endorse extrajudicial murder scares me.

there's a difference between "endorses extrajudicial murder" and "cannot see another alternative".

Hopefully you're not planning to vote this year or planning on applying for a job with the ATF.

nope, I'm just God.

 

[MerryPrankster]

How do you know Book was undercover? Just b/c some bounty hunter claims he's not really a Shepherd doesn't mean he's not. Perhaps Early was familiar with Book prior to his becoming a Shepherd and thought he was undercover.

And if he's undercover, who sent him? If he was an Alliance asset, why did he shoot down the Alliance ship that attacked Haven?

And as far as the Hands of Blue and the local cops, if the HoB abscond with River, do the local cops have any evidence? They can blab all they want about a psychic girl, but I don't think that'll start a panic any more than rednecks claiming to have been abducted by aliens will.

And during the Series, River exhibited telepathic powers--in the episode with Jubal Early, she's able to read minds. You yourself just attempted to justify the HoB's actions by saying that the Reavers could potentially gain a telepath, thus admitting her being psychic is part of the series and not just the movie.

 

[Keenir]

How do you know Book was undercover? Just b/c some bounty hunter claims he's not really a Shepherd doesn't mean he's not. Perhaps Early was familiar with Book prior to his becoming a Shepherd and thought he was undercover.

just as we have no evidence saying Book's not a Shepherd, we also have no evidence saying that Book's not an undercover agent -- -- we're both right: he might be undercover in a role he selected himself: a Shepherd.

And if he's undercover, who sent him?

good question; I've no idea.

If he was an Alliance asset, why did he shoot down the Alliance ship that attacked Haven?

that's facetiousness, right? I hope it is....because the answer is "to maintain his cover"

And as far as the Hands of Blue and the local cops, if the HoB abscond with River, do the local cops have any evidence? They can blab all they want about a psychic girl, but I don't think that'll start a panic any more than rednecks claiming to have been abducted by aliens will.

since people started claiming alien abduction, the number of people who believe that has skyrocketted. (pun not intended)

And during the Series, River exhibited telepathic powers--in the episode with Jubal Early, she's able to read minds.

being on his ship with his stuff didn't hurt either.

You yourself just attempted to justify the HoB's actions by saying that the Reavers could potentially gain a telepath, thus admitting her being psychic is part of the series and not just the movie.

when arguing with Creationists, its best to use the Bible as a reference point; similarly, though I don't buy the movie's claim of telepathy, if it helps explain something in the series better, I'll use it.

 

[Doug M.]

Trash: Mal and Saffron infiltrate the home of Durran Haymer, an ex-Alliance military officer, in order to steal the Lassiter, an antique laser pistol. Haymer reportedly capitalized on the chaos of the War to loot entire communities of antiquities and other valuables, often after exterminating their inhabitants with chemical weapons. At the time of the episode, he lives in quiet luxury in a floating private estate.

Umm. Without getting too deeply into the whole "Alliance: Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil?" question, I have to take issue with this.

We have only one person's word for what Durran Haymer used to do. And that person is

-- a career criminal;
-- a pathological liar with severe psychological problems; and,
-- his ex-wife.

Note also that Haymer seems a pretty decent guy; he doesn't want to kill Saffron, he wants to get her help.

So, a guy that the evil, treacherous con artist says is a war criminal, but who doesn't much act like one. I don't think it passes the sniff test.


Doug M.

 

[MadAce]

Cool thread.

Firefly was most probably one of the best sci-fi shows ever.

 

[Yossarian]

Umm. Without getting too deeply into the whole "Alliance: Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil?" question, I have to take issue with this.

We have only one person's word for what Durran Haymer used to do. And that person is

-- a career criminal;
-- a pathological liar with severe psychological problems; and,
-- his ex-wife.

Note also that Haymer seems a pretty decent guy; he doesn't want to kill Saffron, he wants to get her help.

So, a guy that the evil, treacherous con artist says is a war criminal, but who doesn't much act like one. I don't think it passes the sniff test.

Yes, it was determined in that episode that Durran wasn't actually a war criminal, saffron just said that so the crew would be more willing to rob him.

Most of the negative actions taken by the alliance have been the result of individual corruption and the fact that River is a very special case. There would obviously be a different picture if the main characters were not a group of criminals founded by a man who fought the alliance in the past and harboring the most wanted person in the verse.