Here's How It Is... Or Not

POSTED BY: 34cygni
UPDATED: Thursday, April 29, 2004 18:42
VIEWED: 3664
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34CYGNI

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 5:52 AM

Okay, fellow travelers, I've been lurking around these parts long enough, an' ah reckon it's past time for me to (a) say hello -- and to that end: howdy, stranger... mind if I smoke? -- and (b) stake out my little piece of prairie sod with a longwinded "this is how I see the Firefly universe" post.

By way of establishing my bona fides, I was hooked on the series from the very first episode. Granted, "The Train Job" was far from the best of the lot, but the moment Niska's thug went airborne and disappeared into the maw of Serenity's port engine was the moment I knew I'd be back every week for the forseeable future (barring the month of October, during which "Firefly" was inexplicably preempted by baseball games, if memory serves). I progressed rapidly through the Four Phases of Firefly Fandom --

Enthusiasm: "This show has a lot of potential..."

Happiness: "This show is really good."

Joy: "This show is the best new series to come down the pike in a month of Sundays!"

Bliss: "Sorry, but I can't go out on Friday night. Any Friday night. Ever."

Then, of course, Fox pulled the rug out from under us because the show wasn't pulling the right demographic mix. At least I got my Friday nights back.

But now, against all odds, our beloved Serenity is poised to fly again. Unfortunately, we've got an entire year to fill with naught but rumor and speculation. I'm afraid I'm not tied into any rumor mills that this crowd might value, so I can offer only speculation. I hope it's of some interest.

Without further ado...

1. The Firmament

Is Firefly set in a single solar system or in an interstellar civilization? To my mind, the answer is unambiguous: Serenity is a starship.

Why? Well, leaving aside the many explicit references to the "galaxy" made repeatedly in the show's dialogue, we have never heard so much as a passing reference to any of the major bodies in the solar system of Earth-That-Was. It is therefore unreasonable to suppose that the series is set in our native system. In turn. this implies that either we have to go out of our way to rationalize a one-time-only interstellar migration to a new solar system, or else interstellar travel is routine. The latter seems easier to swallow, particularly given that humanity has mastered gravity so as to obviate a whole bunch of expensive special effects and flying actors around on wires and all. Mastery of gravity implies that physicists long ago discovered a Grand Unification Theory -- and once you know the rules, you can start thinking about how to break them.

I think a lot of the confusion on the FTL issue stems from the fact that Joss, bless his soul, just doesn't grok outer space at all. Or at least, he didn't when he was working on the series... I'm sure plenty of people have pointed out that his very terrestrial sense of speed and distance is laughably out of place in the black, so I won't rant about it here.

Finally, Joss appears to be a canny fellow, and I don't think he would intentionally limit his Big Damn Sci-Fi Show to a single solar system because, well, it's kind of limiting. Who knows -- if the series ever comes back to life, it may someday be dramatically necessary (for which you should probably read, "one of the writers may come up with an irresistibly wacky idea") to blow up a star and destroy an entire solar system. Doubtless it would be River who figures out how to do it, and Zoe who does the impossible and actually pulls the trigger... but that's another conversation entirely.

2. The Nature Of The Alliance

As others have pointed out before me, the Alliance's flag indicates that it was forged out of an alliance between the United States and China (communist China, at that!). Presumably the US went authoritarian, China went capitalist, and they met upon the middle ground of fascism. From what we've seen in the show, the Alliance is a surveillance state in which police powers are vested in the military and merely venturing into an unmonitored neighborhood or stepping inside a police station is noted, logged,

NEROLI

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 6:32 AM

Welcome out of lurkdom and into postdom...and a mighty fine post it is 34Cygni!

You have some interesting theories, definatly thought provoking.

ZOID

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 7:13 AM

34Cygni:

I like your moniker; got a piece of real estate picked out? As to your post, I'll start with the last thing first: It occurs to me you've just made your own brown coat, by virtue of your excellent first epistle. Now you must wear it, by continuing to come to your own conclusions. Individuality and Independent thought (pun intended) are what being a Browncoat is all about. Welcome!

I agree with much of what you've said and found most of your evidence compelling, your conclusions intriguing. However, I'm sticking to my oracles that Book was once General Richard Wilkins, the Alliance mastermind of the brilliant maneuver that obviated their victory at Serenity. You've got to be quick to catch it, but it's in Simon's encyclopedia history recital in the cut-scenes section of the DVD. Protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, I think Joss cut that scene from the series because he feared some might catch on. I think he included it in the DVD set because he thought the show was done (kaput), and he wanted someone to catch on. Here I is.

I'm also gonna stand pat on my belief that Alliance/BlueSun couldn't get a working AI, so they attempted to strip River's mind of distractions to create the next best thing, a 'human war-strategy computer'. Her ability to assess strength and position, then eliminate three targets with three bullets -- as though it were child's play -- I believe indicates strategic military acumen, that a meatware computer peripheral wouldn't need. I am compelled by your citing the 'Cortex' (as in cerebral cortex, the so-called 'thinking cap' of the human brain) to accept the possibility that an AI does exist, and that your argument for River's role has merit (it could also just be a catchy name for an information system). But, as I said, I'm going to stick to my original assessment and let JW tell us which (if either) of us is (most?) correct.

The rest I agree with except in the most purely superficial ways. Ahhh, yet another deep observer! There's more than a few hereabouts. See ya' on the boards...

Respectfully,

zoid
_________________________________________________

(Of River) "Little Sis? I could see big things for her all along. Her and her brother both. I always knew they'd be worth something, y'know?"

- Jayne Cobb, Game Warden and co-proprietor, "Cretaceous Park", Hera; from A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard

CAPNRAHN

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 9:37 AM

First off - A hearty welcome to FFFn to you!!!

Next: AH!!! very excellent theories!

But I have a suggestion for point 10, something you forgot or just omitted:Reavers.

They seem very intregal to Joss' series story arc. What is your theory there? I would love to see your perspective!

"Remember, there is only ONE absolute - There ARE NO absolutes!!!"

SASJA

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 9:42 AM

Hi and welcome - don't we all just love a good speculation! I love most of your theories (I'm not too sure about the AI, though - Whedon's shows are always about people), and I disagree with only one. Your theory on River. I think from the omitted passage in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" that River was destined to become a bluehand herself. Check this dialogue out:

RIVER
(to Book)
We want you to marry us.

SIMON
What? We - no! What?

RIVER
Two by two. Everyone has a mate, a
match, a dopple. I love you.

"Two by two" is of course the first part of the rhyme River sometimes mutters to herself: "Two by two, hands of blue". From way they cut from River repeating this rhyme to herself to the two bluehands by the end of "Serenity", they seem to tell us that the rhyme refers to the bluehands - that they operate in pairs. So when River uses this phrase and wants Simon as her "dopple", I take it that she's been given the idea that at some point she would be part of a "two by two, hands of blue"-some. Now, why bluehands need to be in pairs, I've no idea. As to why they would alter her mind so that she can't push anything back - could it be the first step of gaining control over her mind? First you break down her defenses, then you wire her up to get commands from somewhere, or just stick in a behavioral program making her act in certain ways. At least the bluehands don't seem very out of it, so I assume (if I'm right that River was supposed to be a bluehand) that one of the final steps in her "education" is completely missing.

I could of course be wrong - maybe she has just watched the bluehand pairs and the wedding rites and by herself come to the conclusion that everyone should have a "dopple".

Just my two.

KUGELBLITZ

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 12:37 PM

Some penetrating observations made there 34cygni. They are fine and wonderful ideas. Thanks for the thought provoking post.

To me, your premise of an AI dominated multi-world corporation dominating a culture resonates very strongly with what I have observed in the series. Not only is the thought of a faceless corporation controlling so much, but to even remove its motives from the merely human avarices by putting an AI behind all of the masks creates a very dark and strange source.

With the AI as a given, it would follow that its motives, and its methods would be inhuman to us, however much its autonomous units (blue hands) looked normal. Therefore all manner of odd objectives and efforts would pour forth from this cornucopia of creepiness. Certainly the survival of River and Tam depend on their staying away from any sophisticated machinery, at least anything that posseses alink to the coretex (0r AI).

What a fine cyberpunk styling of high weirdness.

The AI may as well be some remote and terrible god on a mountaintop who pokes at the masses below for its own form of entertainment or enlightenment, with the occasional plague thrown in to keep everyone guessing. We as viewers may not know why it acts as it does (it is NOT going to have human motivations), only that in the limited perspective that we DO have, we may never understand the terrible machinations it uses to gather its resources, and those machinations are very, very different to us, and again, come from an alien source.

So are the blue hands some kind of data phages? Was River supposed to become some fancy kind of search engine? What would she be like if she sat in front of fifty montiors, each one tuned to a different feed?

River has many autistic aspects, and her modificstions point to a destination that is an alien one for any vibrant young human. We can speculate about what or who she is or was to become, but are we merely trying to put into human terms the goals of the ineffable AI?

"We are exporting democracy because we have all of this unused democracy lying around at home. Why not make some money doing it?"

DELIA

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 1:32 PM

Welcome, 34Cygni!

Hell of a first post; I enjoyed it. I'll be very, very curious to see how "right" you got it.

The only question now is, how the hell you're gonna top it.

Delia

BROWNCOAT1

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 1:53 PM

First and foremost, welcome to the board 34cygni. It is always a pleasure to greet a new Browncoat to the forum, and doubly so when that individual has chosen to come out of lurk mode and join our community.

You raise some interesting questions, and some of your theories are very interesting.

I am not really sold on the whole evil A.I. theory. That seems a little sci fi for Firefly and the feel that Joss has imparted to this 'verse we have all come to know and love. Interesting theory nonetheless.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

CYBERSNARK

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 2:17 PM

Welcome spacer. Make yourself at home.

Awesome theories, but I agree with the others who think the AI angle is too far out there for Joss' human-centred story.

Personally, I think Blue Sun could be a secret organization (possibly even reaching back to Earth-that-was), that's using the Alliance itself as a patsy.

As far as anyone else is concerned, Blue Sun is just a random megacorp. What does Blue Sun actually do anyway? Medical goods? Computers? Foodstuffs? Shipping services? TV network?

Quote:
Originally posted by sasja:
the rhyme refers to the bluehands - that they operate in pairs. [. . .] Now, why bluehands need to be in pairs, I've no idea.

Easy: so that if one of them goes rogue, the other'll be able to kill them, give a report to Blue Sun, and then kill themselves to eliminate any security risks.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

EMBERS

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 3:02 PM

First of all: it is great to meet you 34CYGNI, I loved your post...altho, like others, I really disagree about the AI: I think Joss' point is that this is something humans do to themselves. In order to 'protect' ourselves, in order to have comfort and convenience, we take away our own freedoms and lock ourselves into self-made prisons. ID cards, documentation, survelance, and complete lack of freedom are all man-made...and get worse as the goverment and corporations get bigger and more inter-dependent.
JMPO

But Zoid! I must have missed your earlier posted theories, and I am thrilled by this!

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:

I'm sticking to my oracles that Book was once General Richard Wilkins, the Alliance mastermind of the brilliant maneuver that obviated their victory at Serenity. You've got to be quick to catch it, but it's in Simon's encyclopedia history recital in the cut-scenes section of the DVD. Protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, I think Joss cut that scene from the series because he feared some might catch on. I think he included it in the DVD set because he thought the show was done (kaput), and he wanted someone to catch on. Here I is.

Now I must go back to rewatch my DVDs AGAIN!
Because I agree that 'Book' is a made-up name, based on the Good Book...
And obviously Book must have been very important since you can't make up your own secret identity if you don't have friends in high places...
and of course those friends are still making sure that he is treated well when ever he reveals his identity card!

This (all of the above theories and ideas) is why we NEED the movie, and the TV show to return, and more and more information! We have been teased by these first episodes but NOTHING is resolved, none of our questions have been answered.....

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