Would Zoe be a good mother?

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Life, living matter and, as such, matter that shows certain attributes that include responsiveness, growth, metabolism, energy transformation, and reproduction.



Life is about more than one generation, inherently. Without a macro drive for reproduction, everything living is bound for quick extinction.

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You have to remember that our conception of life is rather anthropocentric (also individualistic). There may be organisms out there who are effectively immortal. There may be a species of automatons out there with artificial intelligence and sapience that were made by a squishy creator race. There might be colony organisms that are constantly dying off, but because their cells are always dividing, they're effectively immortal. There might be a hive mind species where the loss of an individual is no more a concern than the loss of a cell. We may someday repair the flaw in transcriptase that causes humans to age.

And lastly, on a chemical level, matter is conserved. You die, but your components are broken down and remade into something else.

So basically, scientists themselves have no idea how to define life. They argue over it quite a bit.

Opposition: I give you viruses. And from a fictional perspective, elves.

Discuss.

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It just seems like some of the characters are in the life that suits them, and I would include Zoe and Mal. It would take a lot for them to depart from that life

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Like a bullet.

Sorry.

I dunno. I just think that there's a such thing as unacceptable risk. We might have fun watching things constantly get worse on a television show or in a movie, but ultimately I can't really agree their lives suit them because I really think they're going to get themselves killed at the rate they're going.

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I think she knows exactly what danger she is capable of handling, where there might be traps, and what situations are un-tenable.

You don't survive a war by being a bad judge of strategy and tactics, or sizing up situations carelessly.

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You don't survive civilian life by constantly seeing it as (or making it into) a battle situation, either.

There's alternatives, really.

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Knowing death, and fearing it analogous to respecting it and actively, tactically avoid it, which she does expertly, is one thing.

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But they haven't. Two of their crew have died, because they've gotten into situations that were too dangerous to expect survival.

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I think that clear-headedness in the face of danger makes her a more effective protector, not a more reckless person, nor a more panicky person.

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Perhaps. But it also makes her more inclined to walk into a situation, sure she'll survive, then to avoid it entirely.

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The shuttles were going further than Serenity

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But still not really close enough to anywhere they could land or be picked up. They all knew they were probably going to die. The shuttles don't have a system to regenerate carbon dioxide back into oxygen. They have a store of oxygen on board, and fuel, but they're only short range shuttles and would run out as well. At best, if they hadn't gone back to Serenity, Mal gave them an extra day to live. And as it explicitly said in the episode, that still wasn't enough time for them to reach any kind of safety.

The other ship happening to be out there was lucky, and not something any of them expected.

Mal stayed behind for all those reasons you said, but again, that doesn't suggest it's because he'd rather go down with his ship than anything else. He simply didn't have any other options.

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she's still there. That would have been a window for her to leave.

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And as I said, she was helping them fix the ship and get emotionally back on their feet. We don't know that she'll stay.

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But rest assured, Mal and Zoe are happier to keep flying than they were during the week they spent starving on the battle-field.

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That's not exactly a high bar, which is kind of my point. Yeah, of course it's better than dyin

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Reavers could have hit them at almost any time, and likely done a whole lot more damage than killing Wash, if they came up unexpectedly. Zoe talked about the order in which the Reavers operate, if they're very, very lucky.

Reavers could have hit them if they lived in a settlement, like the one they were robbing at the beginning of the movie. The broad wave in the bar said that the whole settlement was wiped out, except for some people that MAL put in the vault, because he had the presence of mind to react quickly, and not freeze up.

The Operative is responsible for Book's death, and everyone at Haven, and every one of their contacts. They protected River, as they would protect any of their crew, a child of a crew-member included. They went back for Simon and River like "Big Damn Heroes", before that, too.

And Mal made it clear that the issue that was burning up River Tam's brain, and bringing an operative up against them, was worth dying for, several times, and gave them an out before they left Haven. Zoe was appalled at turning their "home" into an abomination... to make a suicide run, then. If she had a kid in tow, she very well may have stayed behind on Haven rather than making that run.

If the whole outer rim of the 'verse is rough... and there is always an Operative, or a Rance Burgess, or some other thing acting the threat, would you not prefer to stick with people who will go to the mat for you, and your child?

And she said, she isn't so afraid of those circumstances so not to have the child she wants some day.

And being on the drift with a busted ship doesn't do anybody any good for getting their share of the next job. Expenses before profits. That may seem callous to the people wanting to get paid... but a repeat of the situation from "Out of Gas" would be a bad thing... and you have to buy parts when you can, before they break. Kaylee waited on that part for months, before it broke, and put everyone's life at risk. People can get by eating a little less and conserving a little more. IF the ship breaks again, it is a much more fundamental problem.

I am not sure we're ever going to convince each other... but the discussion makes for an interesting day.

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Well, some quick points. Blue Sun is in a part of the system far from the core. Reavers have only been confirmed to hit planets in the Blue Sun system and one time in the Georgia system (nearest to the Blue Sun system), around Whitefall. The other three systems so far are pretty safe, excepting the usual humanity and riff raff.

The Operative is responsible, yes, but choices they made put them on that path. Things could have easily been averted. They were actually rich not once but TWICE between the series and and the movie, well enough they could have retired and bought their own moons. In that case a busted ship doesn't really come up, but Mal decided to go for a bunch of improvements and remodeling instead, and the other time they had less of a choice but they still ended up having to lose it all. So except for Book and Inara they were all still on the ship when things went downhill, and it conceivably could have gone another way.

Though to be fair Book and Inara weren't on the ship, but dragged into it anyway by mere association. But then again, the rest of the crew might not have been IN the bar to have River see the subliminal message and reveal herself if they'd played their cards right.

It's a tragedy. And good dramatic tension. And a tragedy.

But yeah, it has been good talking. Sorry if I was a little too confrontational earlier.

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Still seeing both sides of the Zoe debate, is it better to raise a child on Serenity or off it? I think that the only thing that would potentially prepel Zoe to settle on a planet is the fact that Wash died. If Wash was still alive I have no doubt that they would have stayed, at least for a while, on Serenity. But with Wash['s death Zoe may feel a sense of needing to plan a safe life for her child, safer than Serenity life. If Wash hadn't died I'd be siding completely with MidWesterner, but Wash's death would give Zoe pause to evaluate what would be safest for the child in her womb. I can see her choosing either way of life for child rearing at the point of post BDM.

Byte a chara, I don't understand why you're taking this biological drive thing so seriously, you are being very sensative about it, uncommonly sensative, especially since its a scientific concept and doesn't imply anything about you personally.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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