Browncoats... good guys or not?

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Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

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There are plenty of restrictions on the import/export of livestock even among nations that favor 'free trade'. A more likely example of the lack of 'free trade' would be the geisha dolls with big heads that wobbled.

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If there are restrictions ... it's not free trade ... period.

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How about quarantine?

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BrownCoat1 wrote: Depends on who you ask...

Too true.

This is a great thread to read, lots of great comments and even some insights too the show I hadn't considered.

I realize I'd baited this thread asking if the Browncoats were 'good guys or bad', which implied a simplistic characture that Firefly tries to avoid. And I admit it's just the Alliance uniforms that made me think about the Nazis. Let's face it, the Nazis were evil but they had cool uniforms.

It's funny but I too have detected a reality to this whole set-up that is far more interesting than the good guy / bad guy thing. That Joss... he's always thinking.

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Originally posted by dtt:
Steve, I have to respectfully disagree. In a "space western" produced in America where the main character is a sergeant from the defeated side in a civil war, the American Civil War references CANNOT be denied. The quote, "I'm thinkin' maybe we'll rise again," is ESPECIALLY significant. As a Southerner, I've heard way too many "the South shall rise again" references to agree with what you're saying. Even to this day, there are those in the South who adhere to the idea that one day the southern states will successfully band together and break away from the US. In fact, every insult hurled at Mal in that scene has been used against Southerners with regularity.

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No one is denying that Joss and Co. mined the Civil War for idioms and dress codes. But, really, when have you ever known the guy to hit the nail directly on the head?

Never. That's when.

He always twists and turns and makes the thing you think is going on not. That's the fun.

The British poster, with no American indoctrination, got IMO, the right answer as have many others.

Joss is playing with our heads as he always does. Mixing and matching those aspects of previous civil conflicts that suit the story he wants to tell and tossing those that don't.

Do you really think the Confedrates were the only losers who thought they would "Rise Again?" Or that they were the only ones ever to use that phrase?

Defeated rebels throughout history have thought their causes just and vowed to have another go at the first opportunity.

The real tell on whether or not the Independants mirror the Confedrates specifically (rather than rebels from all such conflicts) is that the Independants, as seen through Mal and Zoe, are CLEARLY on the moral high ground based on current day Western standards.

As opposed to the Confederacy which was not.

That makes them not only the the focus of the show but the actual heroes as well. Contrasted with the representatives of the Alliance- even Simon's own father- who are clearly a bunch of soulless bastards.

The Independants are clearly the good guys which means they can't be proxies for the Confederates.

Them being so clearly the Really Bad Guys and all.





The Price of Knowledge is Knowing.
Audrid Dax

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The Confeds and the Union were both on the same moral ground... to a point. The North had strangled the South dry to the point where slaves were the only option. Indeed that the Browncoats seem to have the moral high ground, but there might be more to the U-War than Joss was allowed to tell.

Mercy is the mark of a great man... *stab*

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Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:


Firstly, the Alliance appears to be a rather heavy handed Authoritarian government. There seems to be no free trade -- hence the smuggling ... even smuggling food as was done in Serenity part two and Shindig (cattle.)

Secondly, like the Nazi's, they do experiments on captive humans. A "law man" was sent to recapture River, so the government is at least in favor of it if not directly involved.

Finally, the rules! Like accusing the "postal clerk" of committing a crime for receiving a package as in The Message. If there was any sort of fairness, the postal clerk would likely have said, "How was I supposed to know there was some sort of contraband in that crate? The package arrived ... I gave it to the addressee!" The fact that the postman DIDN'T react that way indicates to me a "system" of arbitrary rules, and no presumption of innocence. Not to mention the physical threat that the FED made to the postman ... who responded with fear rather than outrage.

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Several points -

1) People smuggle all the time, for a million different reasons - the most noteable are to move illegal cargo and to avoid goverment interference through such things as taxes. The prescence of smuggling does not an authoritarian government make. Heck - how many people go through US customs and just 'forget' to declare everything they've bought, because they don't want to PAY? Technically, that's smuggling. Throw in a few cows, and it's the same thing on a larger scale. Make the good stolen, and you're doing it to avoid a fine or jail sentence.

2) I think it's been made pretty clear that it was Blue Sun doing those experiments, and that most of the Alliance had NO IDEA what they wanted River for. Witness the men killed just for speaking to her in Ariel. Witness the officer who doesn't even know if they want her alive or dead, and so orders them to shoot first (Bushwacked, I /think/.) Again, the horrific actions of a few does not make the entirity evil. I tend to think that's Blue Sun's control of the Alliance at work there, not the Alliance itself.

3)Accusing the postal clerk.. um. Ok. Recall how that lawman was working a tad illegally, chasing down some precious cargo he himself was smuggling? I hardly think we can use him as a shining example of a typical Alliance lawman. As a matter of fact, I never ever in the watching of the episode bought him as a legitimate one, for that exact reason - he uses the same terroristic methods that Niska's men do. He's not acting in his capacity as a lawman in that episode - he's exploiting it.

And how the postman reacted? Dude. 1) He knew he'd done something wrong and 2) The guy just /looked/ mean. He was threatening from the get-go. I'm not sure that implies a status quo.

And finally, I'm not saying there aren't bad feds out there - as with any system, power will go to people's heads, and I'm sure that /especially/ on the border planets, you have people using their fed power for their own means, and to terrorize. But that's an individual trait - not neccessarily a trait of the government, which I still contend was simply bulky and overly bueacratic - not evil.

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Mutter. Gotta stop with the double posts.

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See, I tend towards seeing the Alliance not as Nazis, but more along the lines of the former Soviet Union. A huge, sprawling empire, encompassing numerous satellite states and regions annexed during past wars, largely controlled by the military and by gangs of powerful individuals both legal (the Politburo) and illegal (Russian mafia), where corruption runs rampant and individuals who make too much noise simply disappear because of "state security". The lack of feeling towards many of its own citizens, particularly those in the aforementioned annexed territories, matches that.

And then you've got the whole Chechnya issue.

That model works for me just as well (and not necessarily replacing, but supplementing) as the Civil War analogy.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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AJ, I think you're on the ball here with the Imperial feel going on. I too find the Alliance has all the trappings of an imperial government without the martial law. That is, rather like things are in the U.S.A. right now, fear is the main weapon for controling people.

It too bad we haven't seen some Alliance propoganda. I'll bet the War was 'Operation Independant Freedom'! *chuckle*

And as we all know, since Crassus scared Rome into making him Emperor, fear is the first and most powerful weapon in politics. Period.

For an example of how fear works in controling a people; seems to me Simons' father was afraid for his own social position more than his sons (let alone his own daughters life). Think about it.

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