The Battle of Serenity Valley

POSTED BY: ManiacNumberOne
UPDATED: Sunday, February 1, 2004 21:11
VIEWED: 10931
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DRAKON

Friday, November 14, 2003 11:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ManiacNumberOne:
That's good story Drakon. Where'd you come by it?

I am doing this from memory, but I think it was in the original pilot script. There was a cut scene where Simon (or was it Book) is looking up Serenity valley in his encylopedia, and Zoe explains this stuff to him.

Check a related thread on Book's identity. The encylopedia is cut off just as it mentions the great alliance military commander who won that battle. You get a fragment of his name, and some have speculated that maybe Book was that commanding officer.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

ZAPHODB

Friday, November 14, 2003 7:38 PM

Hee. The original scene you speak of is in this thread. I posted it myself.

GUNSLINGER

Wednesday, December 24, 2003 2:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
The story is that a cease fire existed for about 5 days. Mal ended up commanding about 2,000 (?) sick injured and unsupplied troops while the Alliance and Browncoats held peace talks. No medical supplies and no food and water for five days, after a harsh fight, is not good. Only Zoe and himself of his original platoon survived.

POWs are held only until the conclusion of hostilities. He would not be in a military prison 6 after the war ended, unless he HAD run and was continuing guerilla operations long after hostilities had ceased. Granted there is some vetting, and it depends on how much the Geneva convention holds in the Firefly verse, but still, as long as he had surrendered and had ceased hostilities when the war was over, no reason for him to be in prison based on his war record.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

After WWII the Soviets held some German POWs until the late 50s. The last POW still living was released in 1958. I guess it depends on how the peace negotiations went. I would hope that the decent treatment of the Browncoat POWs would have been the first condition of a surrender.

TEELABROWN

Wednesday, December 24, 2003 6:43 PM

Don't know what to tell you, but I felt I was there on the battle field with them when those gorram humungous ships were landing. To know that you may have no hope of winning, man I wanted to cry. Well, I don't really cry, so that's just me.

............................................................................................
"Freedom is the Freedom to say that 2+2 makes 4. If that is granted, all else follws"-Winston, 1984
Keep flyin', and remember, THEY can't take the sky from US!

KELSO

Wednesday, December 24, 2003 7:50 PM

I've always thought that it would have been a great twist if Shepard Book had been on one of those Alliance ships that Mal saw landing in the distance.

Imagine a shot later in the series which takes us back to that moment, but as Mal looks on we experiance an incredible zoom to reveal Book in the window of the ship looking back at him.

Well, here I am.

GUNSLINGER

Friday, December 26, 2003 1:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by TeelaBrown:
Don't know what to tell you, but I felt I was there on the battle field with them when those gorram humungous ships were landing. To know that you may have no hope of winning, man I wanted to cry. Well, I don't really cry, so that's just me.

............................................................................................
"Freedom is the Freedom to say that 2+2 makes 4. If that is granted, all else follws"-Winston, 1984
Keep flyin', and remember, THEY can't take the sky from US!

I have always been on the other side of those situations. I did feel a sense of pitty for the other guys, but it did not slow me down.

AGREY

Friday, December 26, 2003 5:11 AM

I think y'all are on the right track, but missing a point about the Battle of Serenity Valley: It was six years (roughly) before the rest of the series...and when Mal, Zoe, and Jayne got into the fight with the patrons of that Alliance bar on Unification Day, there was much mention of SIX years since Unification Day...when "The treaty" was signed. Compared to "the treaty" that was negoiated for between five and seven full days before they sent in the medships, it appears that Serenity Valley finished the Indies. Considering also the listed forces-very heavy for a consistently outgunned and outmanned force to commit-it says two things: that the Indies were throwing every possible unit at the Alliance advance through Serenity Valley to stop it, and that they therefore had an objective which they must hold-which was apparently accessible easiest through the Serenity Valley. In otherwords, it sounds like the Independence Movement was making a desperate blocking maneuver to hold onto an absolutely critical 'something'...and when the Indy Generals saw the incoming reinforcements, they informed their political superiors, who ordered them to cut their losses in the valley while the Indy political leadership negoiated a surrender...so it does sound like the troops on the ground got screwed...more like they were dropped into a Charlie Foxtrot by their own commanders.
This all does fit with comments from both Mal, but especially Zoe, both on the ship, and in the battle scene, since she said that they 'must hold or all is lost' (I am paraphrasing...I just finished watching the DVD in order, and my memory ain't Quite Dat Good.) and the shocked expression on her face when told over the comms that air support isn't coming would also support that theory. (Although, in all fairness, that could just be because she has just been told she was consigned to a deathtrap.)
It would also explain why the Alliance would not send in air support...because if the objective beyond the valley and the blocking Indy forces was as important as it appeared to be (and from as hard as the fighting went and all the Indy forces committed to holding Serenity Valley, it appeared to have been absolutely critical), then there was no reason, aside from trying to garner a little good will for negotiations, that even a combatant as outnumbered as the Indies would not sacrafice all available air support to get the Alliance troops and the landing craft touching down...since those vessels were definitely landing craft. And whether heavily armed or not (and they probably were) they still would have been fairly easy prey for half-competent Close Air Support pilots in even half-shitty aircraft, since the landing craft were obviously vulnerable (they were landing, and hence almost stationary and nearly perfectly boxed in and silhoutted targets) to any fairly fast and agile aerospace attack craft...and judging by the quality of the Indy ground troops, the Indy pilots, while not possibly in the most advanced craft, were probably some of the best in space (this late in such a war, outnumbered as they were, the majority of those who were alive would be elite veterans, seeing as the newbies would normally provide most of the casualties), so, the Indy CAS should have been able to turn the Serenity Valley into an abbatoir for the bottlenecked, and moentarily un-aircovered Alliance forces...and presumably deal the Alliance an extremely nasty defeat (lots of dead troops and extreme amounts of wrecked drop ships and other aerospace craft...that would hurt alot...). But, no, the Alliance managed to negoiate a treaty, leading me to suspect what amounts to bribery of the civilian Independence leadership...

And on the subject of the good Book's idnetity, we know that he is at least not only a Shepherd, or perhaps not one at all, although I am pretty sure he is NOW a Shepherd. Judging from his excellent unarmed combat skills, superb marksmanship, and Alliance-assistance inducing Ident Card, he appears to have a backround of military work, probably covert. That is all I can

WILLIAMX

Friday, December 26, 2003 9:48 AM

It would be wierd for Book to be such a public figure as an alliance general. I am almost positive someone like Mal or Zoe would have cortexed up the guy the ended the war, just to look at him.

As far as the surrender goes, if you are on defense you are pretty much responding to what the attackers are doing. If they are dropping overwhelming arty on you then you sit in a hole and pray. If they stop shooting and you get valid orders that the gig is up, then you are only going to shoot if shot at, and pretty much wait and see what happens. If you've just come out of a really sporty situation when the shooting stops you won't really care why . . .

That's just my few years in the light infantry talking though . . . It's hard for me to understand what an all out war would be like in the firefly era . . . I mean, why not just drop some nukes or biologics on the valley and be done with it . . .

AGREY

Friday, December 26, 2003 11:38 AM

I was going to say, it sounded like you are a receipent of the Combat Infantryman's Badge. And yes, if they the Indies were contained in a valley, why even bother with a nuke? with all the asteroid mining that is probably going on and providing rare and precious elements, why not just use the old stand-by of a couple thirty foot rods of tungsten/depleted uranium, dropped from orbit. Kinetic interdiction is cleaner, more destructive, and cheaper for the attacker...and pretty much unstoppable once inbound. But I still think the Indies got sold out by their top civy officials, probably for promises of mass pardons by the Alliance.

GUNSLINGER

Friday, December 26, 2003 1:48 PM

That brings us back to the question of what thet were defending. I suspect they are just as hesitant to use WMD as we are. Such an act could generate sympathy for the Independants. You can't loose sight of the political ends of a war.

By the way, there were a lot of escorts mixed in with all of the landers.

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