Miranda: What's going on?

POSTED BY: TakenBaxter
UPDATED: Thursday, March 23, 2006 07:41
VIEWED: 7678
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TAKENBAXTER

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 6:24 PM

I've looked on this site for someone to have posted a thread about this but i've yet to find it.

Miranda. It's a Rim planet right. Right. It's one of if not the furthest planet out. So why does the Alliance choose to make a Core-like planet so far out. I mean it could easily be said that it was there for the sole purpose of the PAX expirement, but the people didn't know about it. Why would the people agree to settle so far from the Core among the "savage outer planets".

Does this thing go deeper than the movie took us?

Rabbits are Roadkill

ALGUS

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 6:28 PM

Tell colonists they can get away from the core worlds but live on a place set up like one, not as many people, but all the conveniences. Probably the perfect way to lure unsuspecting folk out somewhere remote to experiment on them. On the technical side, its far more jarring then a couple skeletons and a few shacks in the desert. But they most likely wanted a large populace to experiment on. The real question is how the woman making the report resisted the effects. Anyway, I think there are some unanswered questions about Miranda, but they might never get answered.

---
Where's the KABOOM?! There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom! *sigh* Delays...delays...

TAKENBAXTER

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 6:38 PM

Ok this may be a little overreaching but i was thinking that maybe Book had some connection to Miranda. I'm not sure on how it would all work out it it was true, but here's what gave me this little idea:
When Kaylee said Shepard Book had said that Reavers are just men that reached the end of space and saw a vast nothingness and went insane.
Well from what i can see from all the maps and starlog things Miranda is the furthest planet out, so it could very well be what he meant by the edge of space.

This is overreaching isn't it.

Rabbits are Roadkill

AZBROWNCOAT

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 8:35 PM

It seems to me that the woman who made the report crashed on the planet. It looks like she was a scientist and was gathering data when she discovered the results. The side of the ship said "Research and Rescue" or something like that. So she may not have even been planetside long enough for any kind of effects to her.

Alas, like the Book mystery, some answers will never see the light of day.

You know, they tell ya to never hit a man with a closed fist, but it is, on occasion, hilarious.

KAYNA

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 9:08 PM

It's possible that the PAX was limited in amount. When you're checking reactions to an experimental substance you don't just dump folk in a vat of the stuff and say "enjoy!"
Too much could very easily kill them in horrible ways and then you don't have any real data.
What you do is start with small, measured amounts and then see how they react to that. If, after careful observation, you conclude that nothing is happening, then you give them some more.

JOCKOCKEYOCK

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 11:00 PM

After watching the movie till I almost memorized it I came to the conclusion that the Alliance was trying to make a home outside of the other Anti alliance worlds and moons to trap those in-between its sadistical beliefs and the free thinkers. They were attempting to suffocate the last of the independence or rather stop them from happening. They decided the best way to keep their control so far out was to drug the people of the planet so no one would ever have the mind enough for a proper opinion. They wanted the people to be robots clean, sophisticated, peaceful, bright with no dark spots,…. almost like how Simon was but less of his character and no mind enough to go against their “leaders.”

Miranda reminded me of another movie that I watched, Equilibrium. Well don’t want to pull the attention off Serenity but the movie was about a society of people that are emotionally repressed. And sadly enough it is supposed to be the perfect society and in actuality they had only created a world of perfect killers.

The court of this obsession, is abstracted from possession which when the worlds of outside in fall.

SICKDUDE

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 11:20 PM

Sorry, folks, but I had a completely different take on it all.

Miranda being furthest out is coincidence, mostly. There are a certain number of planets that can be terraformed, and Miranda was one still workable but far out. They planned on putting people on all of them.

Now, if you do the math, the Pax was added a bit before the war. About the time the outer planets (including Miranda) were contemplating rebellion. So the Pax was meant as a way to head off the civil war. Only, it didn't go well...

Never read into it that they took a population and just decided to experiment on them.

"It's a cow."

KIZYR

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 11:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TakenBaxter:
When Kaylee said Shepard Book had said that Reavers are just men that reached the end of space and saw a vast nothingness and went insane.

That might be overreaching quite a bit. You could easily figure the same thing based on where Reaver attacks were occurring: Lilac, Whitefall, e.g. Those are places out on the edge of space; so figures that the best guess is that's the 'edge of space' from where Reavers originate. KF

~KF

Lord, I'm walking your way. Let me in, for my feet are sore, my clothes are ragged.
Look in my eyes, Lord, and my sins will play out on them as on a screen. Read them all.
Forgive what you can and send me on my path. I will walk on until you bid me rest.
~Haven Prayer

LEIGHKOHL

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 11:33 PM

In comparison to the movie Equilibrium - You can even go further back to Huxley's Brave New World. It's about a futuristitic society that is controlled by drugs and a caste system imposed from birth. There are savages in a desert "frontier" setting and the name was also garnered from Shakespeare's The Tempest as well. It was written in 1932 and you can see themes of it resonate in works even today. It's a dystopia just as Miranda was. When I was watching in the theater with my best friend, he leaned over and whispered, "Huxley" when we saw the Miranda scene with Sara Paulson. It was creepy cause I was thinking the same thing and even in the commentary Joss mentitons it somewhere I think. If you can check it out, it's a quick read like Orwell and Vonnegut.

SIGMANUNKI

Thursday, March 2, 2006 12:18 AM

@TakenBaxter:
"""
This is overreaching isn't it.
"""

IMO, yes it is.

And Book didn't say that, Kaylee did. Book just said that they might have lost touch with there human side but they were still men.

@AZBrowncoat:
The woman on the ship didn't crash on the planet. From what she said, the Alliance lost contact with the planet and they were sent to find out what happened.

But yes, the effects of a lot of chemicals take time to show themselves. So, if the PAX was still in the air, because nothing smelled funny, or was wrong (Mal didn't make a funny face with that deep breath and the sensors didn't show anything) it was probably very dilute to begin with.

But, then again, was the PAX still in the air? The Alliance wouldn't have pumped more in the air if there was no population to experiment on. Also, the environment might have broken it down. Possibly like trees convert CO_{2} to O_{2}.

@Jockockeyock:
I don't think that that is what was going on. When you experiment with things that you clearly don't want to get out, you tend to do the experimenting somewhere where people don't go ie a remote location. Miranda is rather remote.

That being said, they might have thought that this would be a side benifit if everything worked out the way they planned. But, with things like this, you always have to plan on Murphy.

@SickDude:
"""
Never read into it that they took a population and just decided to experiment on them.
"""

If you remember the scene when River showed them Miranda, Kaylee (I believe) said that she remembered a few years back a call for settlers on a planet called Miranda. Not a thing about it after that. So, this does seem to indicate an intention to experiment. I would think that any math stating otherwise is a mistake on the part of Joss.

@In general:

I'm going to agree with Algus on this one. The easiest way to get people out onto a planet to experiment on them is 1) don't tell you're going to experiment on them; make something up and 2) offer something to them to lure them to where you want them.

I really think that constructing something more complicated and nefarious is reaching way beyond what is actually there. My logic: This was a movie designed to appease the masses. The masses can't handle anything complex (at least anymore). So, when there is nothing in the movie that states anything complicated...

----
"We're in a giant car heading into a brick wall at 100 miles/hr and everybody's arguing about where they want to sit."
-David Suzuki

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