Where did Mal get the money for Serenity?
POSTED BY: ncbrowncoat
UPDATED: Friday, January 20, 2017 21:40
VIEWED: 24769
PAGE 4 of 8
BEB,
Most of these scenarios are plausable because we do not know where he got the money. Just wish Joss would let us know sometime-preferable in another Firfly series or at least in one of the movies.
BTW That sounds like a great fic. I'd love to read it.
Most characterization of Ma Reynolds make her a very smart and practical woman who we know is more than capable of running a large cattle ranch by herself and raising a good son despite the lack of father around, what ever the circumstances.
I wouldn't put it past her to have a sum of money put away in a bank account in a reputable bank somewhere on the Core. Not just for a college fund, but have it there in order to run her business as a herd of cattle could bring in quite a sum of money and she would need the money as working capital for the ranch.
The one complication is that the money would have been liable for confiscation by the Alliance during the Unification war as they control the banks. Unless, she was smart enough to put it in the equivalent of a Swiss bank account.
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Zoid:
If you're having problems coming up with new material, do what I've been taught to do: write nothing. Just write whatever is in your head. Take the last part of the story, the last idea, and start writing down your thought processes. Later, you can go back and take the ideas you like from what you wrote and turn that into more story material. It's called "freewriting."
It's also fairly therapeutic.
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jmbrock:
Thanx for the advice. I do sincerely appreciate it. But my problem isn't a dearth of ideas; when it comes to ideas and story lines, I suffer more from a plenitude of them. Choosing a path in an infinite universe...
But, ultimately, my problem is inertia. I turned out the first 70+ pages in about 2 months, just in my spare time, which ain't much. I have the whole thing mapped out in my head right down to the (open) ending. I'm really happy with how Mal's first encounter with Patience turned out. It makes both good sense, and is funny, according to my somewhat dented humor.
I figured "Shadow" would be suitable for a SciFi miniseries (3 eps x 2 hrs per). I like to write with a goal, even when it's just a personal fantasy. I think the Firefly story could be perhaps best told in this format (and sold on DVD afterwards). Movies 'needs must' be approx 2 hrs long, and that's too short to include both meaningful character development and meaningful story arc -- at least, of the kind Firefly needs and deserves. Series television ultimately proves to be too expensive for science fiction and its accompanying SFX. So, I reckon, 6 total hours shown in three 2-hr installments (done every 1 to 2 years) might be the right amount of time to get the story properly told, at the right cost to the (whatever) studio since it's TV rather than theatrical, and make a really good seller at retailers on DVD, which is where most properties make their money these days, anyway. Certainly, it's where Firefly/Serenity has made the majority of its money.
But like I said, I get distracted by Life, and then can't seem to will myself to write more. I'm pretty neurotic about actually finishing things; I guess subconsciously I don't like things being closed-ended. (NB: Which fits my ENTp profile, btw.)
But, I am giving serious consideration to at least putting up pieces of what I've done in the BlueSun Room, so people can bash or appreciate, as they will...
Thanx again for trying to help me, a chronic non-finisher. ...Or maybe I'm just a short-storyist, rather than a novelist. That would figure, since short-form authors don't get paid. Yeah, that'd be just about right for how things go in my life. 
Respectfully,
zoid
P.S.
Crap! I did it again! Please pay no attention to the hijacker behind the curtain.
v/r
The Great and All-Powerful zed
_________________________________________________
"I aim to misbehave." -Capt. Mal Reynolds, Serenity, a.k.a. 'the BDBOF'
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Well, be sure to let everyone know if you decide to post it. It sounds fantastic, even from the little I know of it. As an avid Fanfiction reader, and reader in general, I can already tell simply from the detail you've put into your explanations that this would be a story I would enjoy reading, one of the good ones that makes sifting through all the bad ones worthwhile.
Good luck,
JMBrock
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Okay, there y'all go. I put an excerpt up, called 'How Malcolm Met Zoe', at http://www.fireflyfans.net/sunroomitem.asp?i=13129.
If it seems to repeat itself -- or lack a certain subtlety -- that's because it's a sequence of flashbacks in the larger story...
v/r,
-zed
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OK, I seem to recall reading in either the Companion or the other book that Shadow wasn't going to be habitable for 700 years or so....cuz they had the audacity to send a lot of fellas to be Independents....
and Zoe says she was raised on a ship (I think in HoG when she and Wash are talking about having a kid). So she very well may have been Alliance...or the rim planets had their own militia, kind of like the Minutemen of 13 Colonies USA fame...
I hope someday we get to find out the background on all this from Joss himself. In the meantime, we have fanfic, and pretty good fanfic at that. Go zoid! I like your analytical, scientific explanation of "burn the land, boil the sea."
"Do not go gentle into that good night....
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. . ."
--Dylan Thomas
Though my soul may set in darkness
It will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly
To be fearful of the night.
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There is no time period given, from what I remember, just the fact that Mal's home was destroyed. And Zoe never said she was raised on a ship.
Must read that story, must have time...
http://www.bigdamnthankyou.com - show Universal your gratitude!
Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. - Gautama Siddharta
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PhoenixRose wrote:
Quote:
There is no time period given, from what I remember, just the fact that Mal's home was destroyed. And Zoe never said she was raised on a ship.
Must read that story, must have time...
Well, Joss never said 700+ years in the Visual Companion. I think KRAD may have said that and that Zoe was raised on a ship in his novelization of Serenity; but, Joss plainly said that Keith drew his own conclusions on a lotta stuff...
So go read my fanfic. It only takes about 10 minutes. My biggest regret is that the larger story is unfinished. I tell "Shadow" -- a la "Out of Gas" -- through an extended use of flashbacks, in which the main, current-timeline story is almost the secondary story to the historical one. Cutting out the pertinent flashbacks to the particular story of how Zoe and Mal met and formed their bond, and then pasting them all together is a bit unsatisfying, for me; but, it was the only way to keep folks from being totally lost and confused. I also think it suffers from losing some of the other details that I cut out in the interest of brevity, to wit, Brian's involvement (he's a farmhand at MacGruder's), Monty, The Old Man (colonel whose mustache Tracey later shaves off), etc. But, the whole thing was pretty oratory and not strictly pertinent to "How Malcolm Met Zoe"...
(NB: Mostly, the cut parts deal with the concept and various interpretations of slavery, and how could that possibly be germane to the Mal/Zoe bond? Well, it could, as the larger story unfolds; but it wouldn't add anything to the excerpt I posted. See what I mean by 'unsatisfying'?)
So I did the best I could, under the circumstances... ...Short of actually getting off the dime and finishing "Shadow", and then posting it, of course (*mutters cuss words at self for being so shiftless*)...
Hijackingly Yours,
zoid
P.S.
I really am a sh*t, for continuing to abuse someone else's thread like this. There's no excuse for it, and I won't try justifying myself. I just hope someone finds this entertaining, so I won't feel so guilty.
_________________________________________________
"I aim to misbehave." -Capt. Mal Reynolds, Serenity, a.k.a. 'the BDBOF'
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Serenity was described as an "03-K64-Midbulk transport"
03 was the third variant, K was a play on the Japanese term for "firefly", and 64 was the year (2464) that the Firefly was first manufactured.
Sooooo...Serenity's not just 10 years old, it's more like 45 years old at the time Mal first fell under her spell. That "Pinto" commment strikes close to the truth, but I think of her more like a VW Bug or an Army Surplus Jeep.
Capn Mark, of the Shiny Apple
ShinyApple, a rare treat, but handle with care or I'll blow yer gorram head off!
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Hey ShinyApple, where'd ya get that tidbit of info? Don't tell me...it's in part one of the Firefly Visual Companion that I still haven't read;)
BEB
Literature has shown us some of humanity's greatest achievements; history, some of our greatest failures -- Alun Lewis
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