History Headscratchers / Firefly

* Out Of Gas just bugs me. Ok, life support is out. Legit problem, if you didn't have space suits with their own ability to give you air. But you do. So the problem is non-existent, hence OOG is an IdiotPlot.

** It's also possible that it's based on Nazirites, who weren't allowed to cut their hair, eat certain foods, drink alcohol, or handle dead bodies. I'm pretty sure Book buries and prays for the dead, but it's possible that he wasn't permitted to do the other things. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazirite Thank you,]] Wiki/TheOtherWiki!

** It might, but judging for Book's words in the show, it hasn't, he seems to be following almost the same Christianity as in the 1800s. And yes, I know the show was suppose to be a western InSpace but still, is hard to believe so little doctrinal change in 500 years.

* Going [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Doylist]], it was a storytelling choice to allow a dramatic reveal of Inara's true profession for the audience's benefit. Dancing around it by using the term "ambassador" allows Mal to spring it on the audience at the same time he springs it on Book, while also allowing for some exposition about how Companions are high-status professionals in this 'verse.

** I find this likely as it is implied Reavers are highly methodical when not actually facing a human. Also, in the first episode they waited until Serenity passed to begin following them. The crew even had reason to hope they wouldn't be followed as long as they didn't run. Therefore, it is possible the Reavers are quite intelligent and in-control when not faced with the prospect of a chase or have a human directly in front of them (in which case they loose it and go into ax crazy mode).

** Why are we assuming Mal doesn't have one? It's specifically mentioned in the pilot that the reason nobody on Serenity wants to deal with Patience is because she shot Mal. We never actually hear the story of how Mal survived being double-crossed and shot by Patience, but a bulletproof vest would answer it plain and simple, as well as explaining why being shot in the back by the Operative in the BigDamnMovie didn't seem to perturb him much either.

** Um, the series was kind of cancelled before they could do any of that hinting. Serenity had to compress a whole lot of plot points to fit into a 2 hour movie; plot points WordOfGod stated would have taken a good couple seasons to fully flesh out. You wanna be bugged by something, be bugged by the existence of ScrewedByTheNetwork.

** It should also be noted that even after River was activated by the Operative's code, she still didn't have constant access to her abilities. When the crew is trying to hold off the Reavers near the end of Serenity she sits helplessly in a manner reminiscent of the "Pilot" until Simon is shot in the chest. Then, as in "War Stories," the direness of the situation seems to make her lucid enough to force herself into activating.

* Given that Serenity regularly ''lands'' on low tech planets, how come fresh vegetables are such a big deal and they all seem to live on processed food? Granted I don't remember seeing a fridge in the galley, but really they should be dealing with unprocessed food more often than not.

** Even on Earth colonies in inhospitable spots (e.g. Antacrtica) have to wait sometimes months for the next shipment of fresh veg to arrive. Serenity spends weeks, sometimes months between systems where they can buy food (provided they have the money and it is available). Do the math.

** Not quite. They are with Blue Sun (though it's implied that Blue Sun also runs the academy), but in ''Those Left Behind'', it is the crew of Serenity who kill the Blue Hands, by going full burn when the Hands' ship was right behind them. Ouch.

** There are decent people in the Alliance: the captain of the Dortmunder gives up on chasing Serenity, chasing a false alarm about a ship in distress.

** I believe that "That's what I do" line was about Mal's inability to be a good leader. I mean, Ariel shown that Mal is perfectly aware that no plan goes smooth for a Serenity crew and he blames himself for that. The fact that he is a thief doesn't seem to bother him in any way.

* Is nobody else bothered by Jaynestown? Actually, I should clarify -- I love Jaynestown, it's a great episode, but it seems like a really bad example of discontinuity. To wit: the amoral, devil-may-care Jayne is profoundly shaken by the Mudder's act of sacrifice, and it gives him A Lot To Think About. It's strongly implied He'll Never Be The Same Again. And then, one episode later, he's...the same Jayne we've always known. If I'm not wrong, we scarcely see any sign at all of a different Jayne until Serenity.

** It was probably simply be a stepping stone in Jayne's character development. He has this realization on an emotional level, but not being the brightest (OR DUMBEST -- remember the pilot), he doesn't intellectually know what it means or what to ''do'' with it. There's a little bit more at the end of Ariel with the confrontation with Mal, but it was always the beginning of "The Message" that symbolized Jayne's next step. The wearing of the hat was symbolic of Jayne both wearing the "funny hat" (literally) AND the "family hat" it's just that he still doesn't think of Simon and River as part of his "family" until (likely) the very end of Serenity. Hats are symbols!

** Its not that odd, when you consider Simon's perspective on things. The very, very, ''very'' last thing he wants is for Serenity's crew to view River as a threat to them; to that end, he's probably not going to bring up any enhancements River has received in casual conversation, and Kaylee reporting River's lethality ''is'' going to make things a lot more difficult for him and paint her in a much more dangerous light. That reason alone is enough for Simon to become upset that her abilities are coming out into the open, and for Simon to not speak a word on River's combat abilities.

* But why did Serenity's crew put themselves in that position to begin with? Kaylee said she could rig the blast doors to stay closed, so why not set up their defensive line behind the closed doors to begin with and let the Alliance troops deal with the Reavers? (And don't say it was to distract them from going the other way to get to Mal. The agent found the back door without tipping off the Reavers.)

** (Actually I was talking about the opening VO of the series. But you're right, the Serenity opening is equally iffy)

** Not really; in the pilot we see him leap off a catwalk onto Dobson's back and fight with Dobson for his gun. In "Safe" he fights off half the witch-burning mob, and in "Ariel" he incapacitates one of the police officers holding them prisoner. In "Objects in Space" he attcks Early ''twice'', the second time after he's been shot in the leg. In "Those Left Behind" he beats one of the Blue Hands over the head with one of Jayne's bench weights [[note]]For those unfamiliar with weightlifting, the bar ''alone'' weighs 45 lbs.[[/note]]. The common thread binding all these together is that he's ''protecting'' River, so it shouldn't be much of a shocker that when Simon is ''rescuing'' her, he proves much more dangerous than one would expect.
** In the pilot, Simon actually says that he was never entirely sure that the box even contained River until Mal kicked it open, so this is in fact a retcon that functioned as a superior movie opening. However, Joss has given the simple explanation of 'Simon was lying to the crew in the pilot'. To Simon, Serenity's crew is a bunch of hardcore outer-rim smugglers who are not currently looking upon him very favourably, so, letting them know that you had the skills, contacts and sheer balls to infiltrate a top-secret Alliance facility and steal their valuable experimental subject from them would most likely make him appear even more dangerous. Much safer to simply portray yourself as the rich kid who did nothing but pay the underground group.

** I know as a viewer of the movie that it is pure retcon for movie sake, but as a person that can justify a lot of retcon in movies, I have an explanation based on the lines from the series and the scene from the movie. He says that he hired smugglers or mercs to get her out in cryostasis (please forgive me if I can't quote lines, it has been a while). That can still be completely true. He never went into any details of how the mercs got her, or put her in said cry or even where they got her from specifically. I immediately just assumed he "left out" the part where he personally broke her out of the hospital. Once they were on the ship above the elevator shaft, I assume that they took Simon to one location while the mercs took river to another, got her in the cry box, and then shipped her off planet as just one more piece of cargo. Think about it in the sense of how hard it would be to get off the planet once he broke in. I am sure the stun device (it was not a grenade in any conventional sense) set of some kind of alarms and the scene seems to show them escaping before alarms "catch up" with them so seemingly they would have ways of stopping craft and inspecting them. How exactly Simon got away or River's box was never found is a matter for further debate, but we can assume it all worked out since they made it to the port and boarded Serenity. So the movie AND the film could be correct, just from different points in the timeline of events.

** The experiments conducted on River clearly loosened her grip with reality, but "insane" is not a binary state of being. For most of the show her state of mind was generally a bit nuts, punctuated by some extended lucid periods from time to time, depending on what medications Simon was treating her with, and other internal and external factors. It seems pretty evident that the Operative's trigger (the subliminally-embedded Oaty Bar commercial) was a massive trauma (when she regains consciousness on Serenity, her first conversation involves begging Simon to kill her). That initially drove her even more crazy, but the jarring loose of the memory of Miranda (an unintended side-effect of the trigger) gave her something concrete to focus on to face and eventually resolve the larger trauma (though we don't know how "cured" she is, just that after the battle with the Reavers she experiences an unusually long lucid period).

** WRT survival: Miranda had enough food supplies to sustain a thirty-million person population. Those kinds of supplies could sustain a thirty-thousand person population for a good long while. Unless you're honestly thinking that the only food source the Reavers have are canniablized colonists, which is just plain idiotic.

** I have what my neurologist calls "Paradox Reaction" to sleeping pills and sedatives. While the second one gives me panic attacks I become wide awake from the first ones. My doctor once prescribed me a very strong sleeping pill. Not only was I awake for 48 hours, I was singing "Yankee Doodle" and "We are the Champions" and other stuff all the time, while jumping around, reading high-speed or talking really fast to the point my boyfriend (who was desperately trying to sleep) thought I was deliberately agonising him. I seemed crazy and even sadistic. Yet I knew all the lyrics, remembered what I had read quite well, and was, after desperate pleas from my boyfriend, able to cooperate. (Imagine the look on his face, when we watched the scene in Serenity where the origin of the Reavers is explained.) It is of course a weak comparison, all I want to say is: you can act psychotic and reasonable at the same time.

** I'd like to point out that while a "freaky supernatural force" controlling the Reavers is not ''necessary'', we also shouldn't rule it out completely. ''Firefly'' is a fairly hard scifi on the whole, but Joss is on record as saying that he wasn't adverse to including supernatural elements in it. The idea that River had become one with Serenity was supposed to be plausible "Who says there can't be magic in space" or something to the effect was Joss's quote. Likewise, we've never gotten a genuine explanation for River's psychic powers; it could be sci-fi, human evolution psychic powers, or it could be magic. The idea that River is a Slayer is a popuar fan theory that as far as I know has never been officially debunked. So while there may be no direct evidence on point, the idea that the PAX went wrong due to supernatural influence, that the Reavers are controlled by some demonic force, or are themselves a demonic hivemind/infection, or some other explanation along those lines, cannot be categorically dismissed as impossible.
** Could be that the radiation is a indicator and not the actual problem. Wash stated that them running without containment is suicidal. That could mean that whatever reaction the engines work on is self-contained, and the housing helps to keep that reaction contained and stable. Running without containment may simply run the risk of the engine exploding like Serenity's did in Out of Gas.

** Uh, no? There was an entire section of the station to the right of the dock that they hadn't secured yet, they had troops attacking the first team from behind ("Get behind us preacher, we need cover!") and it would be idiotic of Niska to not have a bolt-hole. The first team hadn't reached Niska's office by the time Mal was getting strangled by the barbed-wire whip, so Niska had plenty of time to get out of the office and flee. And there's no indication that they'd taken over the space station, as the scene cuts to Mal and Co. back on Serenity right after they save him, with no indication of the follow-up.

** Specifically, in the commentary of the series [[WordOfGod Word of God]] said that he most assuredly was supposed to be a recurring villain in the series. Along with Safron, The Hands of Blue (who were supposed to be different teams of two each time), and Early. Even the agent that got shot in the eye was supposed to return according to [[WordOfGod Word of God]] with either an eye patch or a cyber eye depending on what they thought would fit better. After all, he was only shot in the eye and tossed out of the back. Left for dead is never dead in any story. So Niska getting away was more than likely a plan for potential future stories. Oh, and lest we forget about Patience too. The Serenity crew seems to make it their mission to make long term enemies. <3 Joss.

* Tracy yells "Why're you hanging out with this bible thumper?". Surely the Mal he knew, pre-serenity valley, was still a religious man?

** Haven is equipped with an anti-ship cannon powerful enough to kill a well-armored Alliance ship. It's what Book used to shoot down the ship that hit Haven, and on the DVD, one of the extended scenes shows the cannon is regularly manned and was tracking Serenity when it arrived. Presumably, that gun is enough to keep the Reavers away, especially going by the firepower it exhibits in the movie; two shots from it blew a Reaver vessel about Serenity's size to pieces.

** According to the Lorentz transformation, if Serenity spent its time taking 2 week long trips from one end of the 'verse to the other going about 1/3 of lightspeed, with half of the time spent accelerating or decelerating to that speed, the travel would seem to the crew to take 1.4 times as long. Seven years times 1.4 is 9.8 years. Mal would mentally be only 2.8 years older than he looks.

* In "Out of Gas", when the Serenity's life support is failing -- no oxygen, freezing temperatures -- the ship's artificial gravity still works. I realize it would have been much more difficult and expensive to make it look like there was no gravity, but a handwave at it would have been nice.

** It may be a case of Unreliable Narrator, but Mal told one of his soldiers that the Alliance stated they were going to walk into the Valley unopposed. If his statement was accurate, then the terrain mattered. It also sounded like the war was a series of gradual defeats, with the Valley being the biggest one that determined the fate of the war. In the flashback of Mal, Zoe, and Tracy fighting in a different battle, Zoe is flabbergasted that their command was considering surrendering their position. In Serenity Valley their air force didn't show up because their command determined that battle had become a lost cause. Zoe described surrender negotiations which dramatically increased the already horrendous casualties on both sides which sounds like it may have been THE final battle of the war.

** If Saffron knows enough about shuttles and ships to disable Serenity like she did, it would be reasonable to assume that she was able to override/lockdown any shuttle from the bridge. Also, when a shuttle is locked in place beside the ship, its engines are actually partially locked inside the hull.

** Saffron takes the second shuttle, not Inara's. Inara just happens to be leaving that one because her cortex shorted (thanks to Saffron) and went to see if it was working in the second shuttle. They did, in fact, still have one shuttle still docked. My only guess as to why they couldn't power it up to change their trajectory is that the shuttle simply did not have enough power, or is docked/programed in such a way that it has to disconnect before it can fire up it's engines. I'm pretty sure that when we see the shuttle detach, Serenity unlatches before the engines click on. Alternatively, I suppose everyone is too busy fuming, panicking, or trying not to act drugged to think up that solution. Although, now that you bring it up, I wonder why Mal didn't tell everyone else to get on the shuttle and detach. I mean, what if his plan failed? At least then the rest of the crew would have survived, instead of leaving them all to fry.

** Let's look at the situation; Saffron sabotaged Inara's shuttle. Her goal in doing so was to strand the Serenity crew onboard so they couldn't follow her, and so they would all die so that they couldn't come after her/spread the word about her. Presumably she did enough of a number on the shuttle so that there was no way they could use it to escape. Even if they detach it, it will essentially function as a floating coffin, leaving the crew to either drift inside until they starve/suffocate or until Saffron's friends come and shoot out a window to vent it so they can sell it as salvage. "Out of gas" is not a good example because they can use both shuttle's engines to fly away, something which Saffron would have made sure to take care of if she wanted not witnesses.

* In Serenity, when they enter the space around Miranda with all the reavers and the spotlight comes on, you hear the sound of the light switching on. Yes, I know it is a dramatic sound effect, but they were consistent about the no sound in space thing for every other episode in Firefly and even for everything prior to that in the movie.

** I think he meant that they follow ''all'' of the nav-sat trajectories. Because one of them actually ''is'' Serenity.

** Mal knows his ship. I think he just shut down the real beacon. It's a capital crime, but given the amount of crap he is in already... However, if Alliance checked their logs for records of Serenity nav-sat trajectories for past years, they won't have any problems finding Mal's allies.

* Okay, here's something in Serenity that just occurred to me the other day: In the last act of film, Mal decides that he's going to get the recording they found on Miranda out to the public no matter what. Okay, I can buy that. He's been pushed pretty far at this point in the film, he's a decent guy overall, he has no reason to do the Alliance any favors. But at the same time, haven't they ''already'' been carrying around evidence of the Alliance's callous shenanigans with them the whole time? You know, River? Is it just the scale of what happened on Miranda, or the crap the Operative had been inflicting on them, that made him care so much about ''this'' particular thing when he didn't ever previously seem to feel the need to go all Warn the People about the government snatching and breaking children? He's a Big Damn Hero, sure, but it strikes me as a little inconsistent that he would care so much about one horror and not really at all about the other.

[[folder: Serenity's Docking Position]]
* Serenity (the ship) is repeatedly shown docking upside down relative to what they're docking with because of the design of a Firefly. How does the ArtificialGravity changeover work, since Serenity's gravity would be oriented towards the "ceiling" and the other ship or space station would have theirs oriented towards the "floor."

** This. Recall that in the pilot when they return to Serenity with the cargo, they are shown in the airlock in zero G, anchored by magnetic boots with the cargo floating next to them until Zoey hits a button and turns the gravity back on, causing the cargo to crash to the floor. Presumably when they transition to other ships, the same happens. Zero G-> move to other ship->other ship's gravity takes hold.

* When Mal, in the episode, brings up the possibility of River being psychic, Simon seems confused by the idea. Yet, in "Serenity" (The film), when Simon is posing as a Fed to rescue River, he says something along the lines of "What use do we have for a psychic if she's insane", so he obviously was told of her psychic abilities by those at the academy.

** Could be taken to mean his life. His "world" has gone from being an upper class family and promising career to Serenity and illegal capers.

** Well, to an extent. There's suggestions that a companion might be treated with respect to his or her face, but might be subject to prejudices and judgments from the noblewomen and men behind their back. In the Serenity RPG handbook, it's mentioned that there's a bit of a double standard, in that companions are looked at as suitable escorts for a party, or even long term arrangements like Atherton proposes, but are not looked at as acceptable marriage partners. Short version: they both get looked down on a little. Hence why even Inara has to endure receiving poor treatment and insults sometimes from her clients, but Inara doesn't conduct herself in public in any way that would have call for anyone to try to shame her whereas The Libby was being particularly rude.

** The chain of command on Serenity would probably go in order of importance to the ship's general functions, with a few additions given character personalities and leadership ability. As in:

* [[TheMovie The movie]] has been bugging me a bit, mainly because of what strikes me as [[CharacterDerailment Character Derailment]]. In the series, Mal views the Tams as full-fledged members of Serenity's crew (as is evident by his [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome awesome]] speech to Jayne in 'Ariel'), yet in the film, as is evident by his talk with Simon at the beginning, he sees them as simple passengers who are paying their way through Simon's doctoring. That, and when they're letting the Tams off the ship, Kaylee criticizes Mal for "keeping him [Simon] from knowing I was there." Uh, what? At no point in the show did Mal ''ever'' try to hinder Simon and Kaylee's budding relationship. He didn't necessarily try to strengthen it, but he didn't seem to mind them getting close.

** Mal said in the show that taking the Tams onboard meant working harder to stay under Alliance radar, meaning that the crew was having a harder time finding work. Add 8 months of the Alliance expanding it's grip, and it's no wonder that Mal might start seeing Simon as the reason that Serenity is running on fumes and the crew is eating leftover scraps.

* In the pilot episode, Serenity has a close encounter with a reaver ship. I know it's supposed to be a tense, suspenseful experience, but I couldn't get past how slow both ships were moving. The reaver ship is within grappling range for something like twenty seconds. I could maybe accept the [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale wild unlikelihood]] of two ships passing that closely to one another in the great vastness of space without any course corrections, but there's no way these vessels would be crawling through the black at ten miles an hour.

** It's also possible Mal had Wash slow down so it didn't look like Serenity was "running away" from the Reaver ship, since they point out that Reavers practically ''have to'' chase you if you run. It was the outerspace equivalent of, "Okay, everyone just act natural..."

** The answer to that is fairly simple -- River Tam. A crazy girl is hard to hide on a days- or weeks-long voyage on a small ship, and the kind of people who would choose to take passage on a rim worlds smuggler would probably not be the kind who could be relied upon to keep schtum when offered a reward or threatened with arrest. Looking after the Tams forced Serenity (and her crew) to stay further off the radar than normal; that included not taking passengers. They just happened to have already got seriously lucky in finding first Inara and then Book.
** Also, Serenity has limited bunk space. Book, Simon, and River each take a bunk. That leaves, at best, a couple of bunks for passengers to sleep in. Keep in mind also that carrying passengers is unusual (they were only taking on passengers on Persephone because they needed the money desperately) and passengers don't pay much ("Our fares don't pay a tenth of what you make on one of your 'jobs'" Book notes.) Short version, unless a passenger is paying a ''ton'' of money, then they're not getting on -- and a passenger willing to pay that much to move on a civilian freighter like Serenity is likely not up to any good, as they can afford better accommodations.

** The problem in having day-night shifts like on the nautical ships of Earth-That-Is is that first, Serenity only has maybe four people who have any responsibility delegated to them in regards to keeping the ship on course and collision free. Two of them are married and wouldn't go for being on different shifts. The second is that they're landing on worlds with different local times compared to ship time and standard time. As they travel they have to adjust their sleeping schedules for the space equivalent of jet lag. Much like modern airline crews, when it's time to sleep, they all go to their hotel rooms, or in this case, their bunks. Just makes it easier if everyone is on the same sleeping schedule when they have to take off, maneuver, land, and etc. Wouldn't do to have the pilot nodding off because he took the night shift.

** I think it was a case of easy logistics. Wash isn't needed to pilot the ship at all times and it helps the plot if everyone is asleep at the same time, even if that's not how you would pilot a ship, considering the in-universe dangers, like poachers and the government officials that are looking for Serenity and her crew, not to mention the dangers of traveling in space.

** With regards to the holding cell functionality, it's important to remember that Serenity is a ship crewed by outlaws and operated more or less continuously in the service of their unlawful purposes. In some cases, these purposes may make it necessary to incarcerate one or more individuals, such as an Alliance officer on board the ship who knows too much (like Agent Dobson), or one of the crew having a psychotic episode (River, multiple times), or etc. In the event of such, being able to put them in a room and lock the door from the outside is a very useful function. We see them use this a couple times throughout the series; it's just that Jubal Early managed to slip onto the ship and turn it around on them.

** "Shepherd" is not just what they call pastors and ministers in the 'verse. Book is a member of the Order of Shepherds. From pages 206-207 of the Serenity RPG:

* Slightly annoyed by the inconsistent timeline in ''The Shepherd's Tale'' when compared with the one given in both the series and ''Serenity.'' According to the comic, Book was on Serenity for two years, while the movie makes it explicitly clear that he'd only been there for eight months (River and Simon joing at the same time, and Mal stating they'd been on for that long), and Inara stated she was on the ship for a about a year in "Bushwhacked." Its just a minor inconsistency, though, and I'm willing to ignore it.
** Well, it's that, or there's a much longer space between the movie and the series than speculated. Statements about when the movie was after the series often conflict, I hear two or six months most often, and it could conceivably be longer. Based on how the comic book is set up, Book could leave Serenity after some time, and stay on Haven for the rest of the two years. Technically, though, it's Inara I recall saying "eight months" and that's in The Train Job, it's when she's talking to Book and he says he feels bothered that he can't help the crew, and Inara suggests he pray for them. In Bushwhacked, yes, Inara says she's been on the ship for about a year.

** Additionally, the Serenity crew may not be this kind of people, but some in the 'verse must be -- when I stub my toe, I can let out a ClusterFBomb and all the imprecations in English against whatever just hurt me. I wouldn't be caught dead saying anything more than a ''very'' minced oath in Vietnamese, my mother tongue. I just have an aversion to swearing in Viet because it feels much worse than English. (I'm from a similar background and upbringing as the Tams, for reference.) Presumably the Chinese swears provide this kind of distance to English speakers in the 'verse.

* Why do the others not seem to find it strange that River goes barefoot so often. Granted, going barefoot on the ship probably isn't unusual, but I mean the times she's left Serenity in bare feet (the episode "Bushwhacked", and during the heist at the start of the TheMovie), nobody really comments on it. I suppose by the time of TheMovie, the others are used to her going without shoes, even off the ship, but in "Bushwhacked" it seems odd nobody says anything about it. Simon doesn't even ask her "Where are your boots?" Jayne doesn't even make a remark about it, and he's known for making snide remarks about almost everything.

* In "Jaynestown", the town boss has the "port authority" activate a "land lock" on Serenity. For starters, the idea of a "port authority" in this circumstance seems a bit questionable, but that isn't my biggest issue here. The place where Serenity lands doesn't appear to be anything I would call a space port, just an open field somewhere near the mud bogs. The "land lock" does not appear to be anything external to the ship, analogous to a wheel lock for cars. Even if it was, I'm having trouble imagining something external that would be able to hold the ship in place. All evidence indicates to me that it is something in the ship's electronics, activated by a signal from the "port authority". I see two major problems with this: If you have purchased a ship whose express purpose is to carry cargo of any kind without regard to legality, why would you not have your genius ship mechanic remove or inactivate anything that could remotely immobilize said ship? And if such a thing really exists, what is there to prevent any bad guy from sitting at a spaceport, recording signals until some poor soul has a "land lock" applied, then using the signal to immobilize some rich target later on in a hijacking?

** They almost certainly do slave up their nav computer to port authority as a requirement. It does't need to be referenced in other episodes, in the other episodes either Serenity wasn't suspicious enough to draw a landlock, the Sheriff of Paradiso decided to let them go, or, in The Message and Womack's case, he didn't have the authority or jurisdiction to call in a landlock. Which was discussed IN the episode.

** ''Aside from the central worlds, which this does not appear to be, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of a force that could prevent someone from landing in a rural area.'' Not necessarily. This is a spacefaring society with long-range communications/sensor technology. Such a society would easily be able to track incoming ships coming in for a landing anywhere on the planet if they're willing to pay for a proper satellite array, and thus force any ships coming in to submit to a landlock or dispatch security forces to deal with them. The more rural world likely won't have this kind of tech base, but even the backwards planets seem to have some capacity to track incoming ships; the sheriffs in "The Train Job" were able to backtrack Serenity, for example.

* In "Ariel," Simon's [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome dialogue]] with the police chief reveals that he is very definitely wanted alive. In his first (shirtless) conversation with Early, he is clearly specified as wanted "dead or." And then at the end ... he just dumps Simon. While Sean Maher isn't that short, Simon is generally force-perspectived as a tiny little guy whose combat reflexes in series are ... well, Simon tries hard. And this is Early, the guy who took out Mal. Early could have disabled Simon and tossed him over his shoulder with little trouble. And River has not been seen to do any bargaining -- i.e., there's no, "I'll be your bounty, just leave my brother on Serenity."\\

* The comic book ''A Shepherd's Tale'' completely contradicts the one clue that we get towards Book's shadowy mysterious past in the series. In ''Safe'', as soon as the Alliance see Book's ID they grant him urgent medical attention and free passage for the Serenity, implying he was formerly a respected high-ranking Alliance office or something. The comic shows that he ''was'' a high-ranking Alliance officer...who was dishonourably discharged without trial and dumped out of an escape pod after masterminding the worst defeat the Alliance suffered during the war. An Alliance officer who runs into him after the event ''beats the crap out of him''. So why were the ones on the show so respectful? Massive cover-up?

* This is inspired by the answer to the "guns in space" complaint, namely that a hull rated to take a micrometeorite at .33 ''c'' won't even blink at a mere bullet. There are windows on Serenity. They must be rated for meteorites, too. So...how did the Reaver harpoon penetrate it?

* This bugged me so much while watching Serenity, Zoe points out that the Reavers just hang around between Haven and Miranda, sending out raiding parties, the bit that bugs me is the Reavers have an ''entire planet'' to hang around on when not raiding, so the obvious question is this, why don't they? you would think having more room for torture rooms and the like would be attractive to them, or is it instinctual fear of the place (as much as they can have fear) or some Reaver superstition?

* In "Bushwhacked", we get a look at the galley of the ghost ship where trays of half-eaten food remain on the table; someone (Zoe, I think) says there are no signs of a struggle. But there ''was'' a struggle, or ought to have been - they were attacked! By enemies not known for their ninja-like stealth and subtlety, I might add. Did everybody just get up and leave the galley to go hide in the cargo bay, while the Reavers went directly there without bothering to search anywhere else?

** Ceramic plates ARE reusable but your mileage may vary. The IBA armor had plates that could withstand 7.62mm rounds at a distance, but were still marked "FRAGILE" in white print at CIF and could be broken by being dropped, counterintuitively. If hit by a smaller caliber the plates can be reused but it takes luck and distance to stop more than a few rifle rounds - some of the first things you're told about the armor in basic training is that it is only really designed to stop one real good bullet impact. The kevlar ACH helmet and the plates aren't just for bullets - they make soldiers extremely resilient in hand to hand combat, where the two most common strike locations are now considerably less squishy. Also for falling down and getting knocked over because you're wearing thirty kilos of extra gear and your poor stabilizer muscles can't hack it.

** You don't have to be at war to want a really good assassin. The Alliance has some shady business practices--you don't think assassinating political rivals and opponents is on the table?

** Its worth noting that River's combat ability and mental abilities only begin to really manifest after Simon begins treatment of her immediately after "Ariel" - see "War Stories" and "Better Days" for examples of River destroying things prior to the movie. It seems entirely possible that Simon's medications may have helped clear up her mind and in turn allow her to remember or have the mental clarity to use her combat abilities. The Big Damn Movie just showed what River is like when she goes on a full-scale rampage.

** If you notice "Safe", she was absolutely calm even as the hill people were about to light her on fire - possibly because she could sense Mal and Zoe nearby, about to play BigDamnHeroes?

** According to the Roleplaying game, canned food costs the equivalent of US$125 per person per week. Fresh costs US$200, while "luxury" food cost US$50 for one "unit" - probably about what Book brought on board in the first episode. What the crew usually eats is a protein paste that costs US$75 per person per week, which comes in a tube and is often cut into different shapes and cooked to try to give it a different flavor. Given the state of cloning and technology in the 'verse, the paste is probably synthetic or cloned. There are no refrigerators because unless a crew is very rich, they will only be able to afford limited supplies of fresh food and will eat so quickly as not to need much refrigeration.

** This is addressed in the Fridge Logic of Firefly. Someone suggested the idea that is melts brains - which could be used as evidence (that dead people's brains could be read like a book). They do it to detsroy any evidence that they existed.

** I'm fairly sure the Christmas presents had very little to do with the Blue Hands and everything to do with Jayne's greed. His greed lured him into dealing with the Alliance who then double-crossed him and took away all the presents. Particularly since she specifically warns Jayne not to look in the closet, it's greedy - she's clearly talking about him and warning him against his own greed, which got them into that mess in the first place.

** That's exactly it. She's referring to Jayne's emotional state, and his situation; she knows what he's done because she presumably read his mind during the flurry of brain activity that the mediscanner picked up (that neither Simon or Jayne notice). He was expecting a 'present' - his reward money - but all he's getting is coal. Or, a jail sentence. Though when she further goes on to tell him not to look in the closet, she's presumably taunting him a little, or deliberately unnerving him.

** Well if the Alliance already had the Hands working for them--who were possibly androids, cybernetic creatures, or advanced psychic ninjas--one wonders why they would bother with grooming an unstable 90-lb teenage girl.

** The Alliance is neither good nor evil. It's a lot of people, who are themselves either good or evil, or a mix of both like most people. Miranda, and employing Blue Hands and the Operative, shows that some of those people are willing to do stupid or dangerous things to "maintain order"-- making them {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s. Not evil, just the wrong kind of good. Or starting with good intentions and [[GoneHorriblyWrong suffering the usual form of dramatic irony]].

** This. The Operative asks the scientist "Would you be killed in your sleep like an ailing pet?", which pretty heavily implies he's marked for death anyway. The Operative is just being in character - he has to deal with the scientist anyway to find stuff out about River, so why not give him a more honourable death than he would otherwise have while he's at it?

* Mal and Inara supposedly trade verbal barbs ('Believe me, I've called him worse') as part of their Main/{{Anvilicious}} /[[Main/{{UST}} UST-ic]] masochism tango - so when do we hear Inara actually insult him? I mean, she calls him a 'petty thief' - ''burn'', baby, burn! - and then ''apologises''; all other insults are faint-to-nonexistent. So did all of this cutting dialogue happen before the Tams boarded, or ...?

* Is nobody else bothered by Jaynestown? Actually, I should clarify --- I love Jaynestown, it's a great episode, but it seems like a really bad example of discontinuity. To wit: the amoral, devil-may-care Jayne is profoundly shaken by the Mudder's act of sacrifice, and it gives him A Lot To Think About. It's strongly implied He'll Never Be The Same Again. And then, one episode later, he's...the same Jayne we've always known. If I'm not wrong, we scarcely see any sign at all of a different Jayne until Serenity.

** Firefly ''is'' that good a show, to the extent that - much as in real life - events can inform a character's worldview without changing it completely. In the next episode, Ariel, Jayne is more concerned about River and Simon finding out about his duplicity than he is about dying - clearly this has been informed by the loss of his legacy in Jaynestown. I'd say it would be unrealistic for something like Jaynestown to turn him around immediately, and since they need to get the possibility of Jayne turning River in for cash out of the way at some point (after it was raised in the pilot), it makes sense to do it straight after Jaynestown.

** It was probably simply be a stepping stone in Jayne's character development. He has this realization on an emotional level, but not being the brightest (OR DUMBEST-- remember the pilot), he doesn't intellectually know what it means or what to ''do'' with it. There's a little bit more at the end of Ariel with the confrontation with Mal, but it was always the beginning of "The Message" that symbolized Jayne's next step. The wearing of the hat was symbolic of Jayne both wearing the "funny hat" (literally) AND the "family hat" it's just that he still doesn't think of Simon and River as part of his "family" until (likely) the very end of Serenity. Hats are symbols!

** Not only did I reach the same conclusions when I first saw the episode, but something else occurred to me at the time as well. Simon's already shown blade-wielding aptitude - surgically-speaking. What if that talent isn't just limited to his medical aptitude but is also part of a more generalised blade-wielding talent? That would result in him not just being trained in fencing because of his breeding but actually being ''good at it'' as well (I don't mean River-good, just good by anyone else's standards). Given Simon's personality, I would assume he'd only be interested in the fencing sport and not in death-duels, but then the rather Alexandre Dumas-esque feel of "Shindig" did leave me suspecting that death-duels would only occur on outer planets, leaving core planets to practice it for sporting purposes, and I could see Simon mastering it as a 'gentleman's sport' rather than for gritty fights-to-the-death. That would leave Simon with a general talent for blades but a preference for channelling that talent into healing rather than harming.

** The series left me with a lot of suspicions. In "Objects in Space", watch Simon during that crew meeting. There are times when he's watching people like a hawk - tense, alert, cagey. When asked directly about her abilities, he becomes hesitant, vague and cagey. To me, he seemed to be deliberately downplaying her abilities - and I felt Mal sensed that, which is why he cut right through it to the 'reader' comment, after all, Simon had first-hand proof in "Safe" that River was reading minds. Even more interesting, while the locals reaction to it shocked him, he didn't seem particularly surprised by River's abilities. Even in the pilot, his initial speech seemed terribly vague - Zoe asked him directly how he got River out of the facility but he didn't actually answer her: money and luck, isn't an answer, it's a detail-free deflection. "Ariel" was an eye-opener for me upon seeing how familiar and good Simon was at breaking into Alliance-controlled facilities, it made me think that the criminal organisation, instead of simply being payrolled by him, was actually (if not put together by him in the first place) controlled by him. By the time "Objects in Space" came and went, I was utterly convinced Simon was hiding something about River's rescue and abilities. If anything, the film's version of events felt more like a confirmation of my suspicions than an actual contradiction of the series.

** There is a lot of individual variation with how the body responds to exercise. I personally need to do very little lifting to put on bulk. River may also have had relatively subtle editing - e.g. something to suppress myostatin, or to manipulate the size and makeup of the individual muscle fibres. Look up "double-muscled cattle" and you'll see animals that don't need to do any exercise to get fully chonk.

** I took River's comment as an intellectual observation, not a psychic one. In "Objects in Space" killing Early with her brain is precisely what she does. Intelligence, creativity and psychology are the weapons she uses to win the day. Yes, obviously being a reader gives her an edge, but I'm betting it's not having the psychic abilities that makes her so good, it's how she uses them that makes her so good - and the how comes from her creativity and her intelligence. In other words, she wasn't threatening Jayne with her psychic abilities, she was threatening him with her intelligence.

** Recoiless weapons fire SOMETHING out the back to balance the forces - e.g. propellant gas. Many of them cannot be used inside vehicles or bunkers for this reason. In a conventional (not shoulder launched) firearm, these gases would scorch the operator. In a miniature version, the propellant gas would be ejected at higher speed to compensate for lower mass - and would therefore punch a hole in the wielder's arm.
** Maybe it is an enhancement of some sort - a basic weapon that perhaps uses energetic ammunition, perhaps feeding some sort of energy into the weapon's clip prior to firing. As for the 'pew-pew' noises, it might be the same but applying said energy-effect as it leaves the barrel.

** Unreliable narrator may well be the word - the voiceover at that point was being given by a character in one of River's crazy Miranda-dreams.

** Why assume the sun is the "singular energy source"? Maybe one reason terraforming is so dangerous is that other energy sources are needed, so radioactive isotopes must be mined to keep each planet livable. Or alternately, some means of focusing or collecting energy could be used-- most of light or heat from a sun just goes to waste in empty space.
** And "Blue Sun" might be more than a name-- a Blue Supergiant star would have a ''much'' wider Habitable Zone than a dinky borderline-dwarf like Sol. Room for plenty of worlds, especially if they're not all in same orbital plane.

** Having checked the official map, there are five regular stars and seven protostars. Most of the protostars have two or three planets (and their associated moons) circling them, while the main stars have anywhere from five to seventeen planets. The largest is the Kalidesa system, which contains seventeen worlds, but also has a protostar circling it in a stable orbit which could provide additional energy to the rest of the system. The Core itself is centered around a huge white star called White Sun, and contains eleven worlds and two protostars. The outermost protostar orbiting White Sun contains Persephone, whose elliptical orbit takes it close to the Red Sun and Georgia systems, which orbit on opposite sides of White Sun. Kaladesa and Blue Sun sit on opposite sides of White Sun, but much further out, with Blue Sun being the farthest from the Core. Miranda, incidentally, is in the Blue Sun system, orbiting furthest out, around its own protostar. That would explain why it was used for the Pax and why no one knew about it - it was pretty much the ass-end of nowhere, as far from the Core as a planet can potentially get. If the map's positions are an accurate rendition of what the state of the planets' orbits were as of the series itself (and we have no reason not to believe this) then Miranda's orbit had taken it as far from the Core as was possible for it to get at that point. If the distance is comparable to our solar system (Miranda's star is about fifty AU from Blue Sun, according to the map) then it would have been out there for half a century at least.

** That's assuming that 1.) the map is accurate and 2.) it's to scale. Neither is a given. Also, note that in one episode (have to check) there's a background space shot what looks like a planet(oid) forming or collecting out of asteroids-- maybe the reason there's so many worlds is that they ''build'' new ones.

** There's no really good shot of the night sky at any point in the series, and there's only a few actual shots of a star during daytime, none of which is particularly indicative - and a daytime star would have blotted out any other stars in the sky especially if they're dwarf stars. There are no binary or larger star systems in the 'Verse either (just single stars with a number of protostars circling them), so either way you aren't going to see a Star Wars-eque multi-sun sunset anyway. That being said, the "Official Map of the 'Verse" is called "official" for a reason; it is considered canon by Whedon.

* In the episode ''Trash'', Inara holds Saffron up with the laser gun (lasiter) they pilfered from that rich guy. In true Firefly manner, the gun fails to work, but the way they present it, it's because the gun is unreliable piece of over-engineered fancy crap, instead of say, not kept loaded because it was a display piece.

** What ass kicking? Simon's infiltration of that base is an epic feat of ''social engineering'', in that he pulled off an exceptionally difficult con job to get as far as he did. This plays to one of Simon's strengths... his ability to convincingly act like an upper-class Core citizen (as he ''is'' one). His actual physical violence in that sequence is limited to dropping one stun grenade and punching out one unarmed scientist who's even wimpier than he is. Indeed, the entire dichotomy is an illustration for Simon's biggest limitation - his ability to adapt to unfamiliar social environments is virtually nonexistent. But as long as there's a set of rules on how one is 'supposed' to act in a given environment ''and he already knows what the rules are'', then he's a calm, alert borderline genius. Witness his behavior when needed as a doctor, no matter how horrible the situation around him is - Simon is intimately familiar with 'the rules' on 'how a doctor should behave with his patients', and those rules have a subchapter on remaining functional during crisis situations. Or, ask him to try impersonating a member of the highest levels of Alliance society, in a situation where an unconvincing act will get him killed? He can do that, he knows exactly how such a person ''should'' act. But ask him to go to a frontier world and just try to talk to ordinary people? Nobody's ever formally taught him how to do that, and so, he can't.

** Seems I was partly mistaken - that line is real, but it's only in the shooting script. I must've been reading that and gotten it mixed up. It originally would have been in Simon's explanation scene, right before Inara saying "Will she be alright"? The exact dialogue was:

* In the movie, they say that River went insane after finding out about Miranda, and is healed when she learns of it again. But what about the tests- I thought that's what made her go crazy?

** The notion that River can never be cured is a little odd. The series established that most of her mental problems stemmed from what is basically a traumatic brain injury. The 'Verse has fairly advanced nerve regeneration technology (good enough for Mal to still be athletic after a spinal cord injury during the war) which could in theory heal the structural damage to River's brain. Post-Ariel Simon designed a new, unexplained, course of treatment for River that he was surprised didn't work. If he had her on some sort of regenerative therapy, it could be that by the time of the movie it was purely psychological trauma that River was dealing with (which she apparently worked through with lots of violence).

** The Operative's technique appears to work by hitting that nerve cluster to paralyze someone--Mal did not imply that the nerve damage was ''repaired'', since if it was repaired, then the technique would have worked. I believe Mal says that the nerve cluster was removed or otherwise bypassed.

* How do the Reavers ever think straight enough to keep a spaceship running? Piloting and maintaining ships seems to require a level of patience and book-knowledge that Reavers simply don't have. Even if they steal and redecorate ships from their victims, they'd have to keep one ship working long enough to find the next one. I'm not even going to ask how Reavers can cooperate and never do their thing on each other - I'm assuming that the Pax gas instills some kind of zombie-esque effect that makes Reavers taste bad to other Reavers.

** As an aside, it also looks like a ''lot'' of the tech in Firefly is designed to be dummy-friendly; as the salvager in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" points out, Firefly-class ships are so well-designed that they can keep flying if the mechanic isn't even half-awake. Though that's obviously an exaggeration, it does look like a lot of civilian ships - which are almost exclusively what the Reavers use - are rugged enough to survive for a while even with all the abuse the Reavers put them through.

** As a general rule, Firefly avoids Startrekian Force Fields - the gun scanner in the super-rich shindig aside, shielding isn't generally a matter of "100% or 10%". It's either there, or it's not! More to the point, as a general rule, out of any kind of reactor, you don't '''get''' more energy by 'reducing shielding', you get it by running the reactor so hot it overcomes it's shielding. Either way; if they remove so much shielding from the core, presumably in the form of removing dampening plates that curb emissions and control the reaction, '''or''' if they run the reactor so hot that it's lack of containment can be detected from '''outside the ship''' - you know, through the hull, where most ''sane'' people like to have a lot of additional radiation shielding so they don't fry in space - they should be putting out enough rads to cook themselves. And even if the doses aren't lethal inside of a few days/weeks' time, they'd almost certainly be debilitating - even a Reaver's total lack of regard for their own pain wouldn't negate the fact that they have an atrophying body whose parts won't work.

** As for their body modifications, real-life humans have been cutting ourselves for cosmetic purposes longer than we've been writing-- such body art includes tattoos, piercing, and scarification. Reavers have access to better medical technology than we have today. On the other hand, practices like that probably aren't sustainable since they're probably breeding up drug-resistant strains of infectious microbes in the process.

** The brick of food is probably a protein + miltivitamin blend to supplement a poor diet, rather than being the entirety of the diet, since calories cannot really be condensed. Fat is the most energy dense food there is, and a moderately active man burns through about 10kg of that per month (e.g. that was the loss rate measured in "features of a successful therapeutic fast of 382 days duration") - far more than could be contained in a single "brick" of food.

** Also, according to the official "Map of the Verse," Miranda is the outermost planet of the Blue Sun quadrant of the Verse, which is the outermost region of the entirety of Alliance-controlled territory. Its also the backwater of backwaters - the entire Blue Sun system only holds about eighteen million people. Considering that the farthest the Reavers have ever expanded as of the main series is around Athens - which is in the next-closest system of Georgia, which its itself still pretty far out - the Reavers simply haven't gotten far enough to arouse major public suspicion. Sicne they're only raiding backwaters no-one in the Core cares about, it would be easy for the Alliance to dismiss them as rumors and hysterics.

** We don't know the psychology behind the Reavers, or what they're thinking, or why they do what they do. The only explanation we have is the hasty, horrified words of a scientist who is about to die and knows it, talking in very general terms, talking about a drug that is obviously acting in a manner that she didn't expect it to. She says they've progressed "beyond madness" but all their observed actions point otherwise: they're smart, they're organized, and they're skilled enough to set traps, control spaceships, and generally not act like mindless berserk killing machines. That doesn't require some freaky supernatural force controlling them - all it requires is a strong leader and sense of direction and purpose. They may be savage and brutal in the extreme, but no more so than most ancient and Middle Age armies were.

** The core book of the RPG describes Reavers as being obsessed with pain - both feeling it and spreading it. That's why they stick fish hooks through their flesh and carve their own faces up with knives. Just a little window into Reaver psychology.
** More on the rpg front, it also suggests a Reaver-PC game, by pointing out that mindless beasts would have a hard time flying and maintaining ships and weapons, so at the very least there must be some intelligent Reavers to handle those jobs to make for some good PC stories. Anyway, since they clearly don't attack each other (as far as we see), they probably have enough intelligence to regonise who is Reaver and not Revear. Or alternatively they are all intelligent as the normal person, they just get overwhelmed with the rage whenever they see something not-reaver, meaning that when alone they could concetrate enough to fly around. If they have more self-control then we seem them demonstrate however, I had the theory that whenever they regonise someone with skills they need (like engineers for example) they simply take them to wherever they need them and force them to work.

** That would probably be fairly easy. All he'd need would be to have a recall device somewhere on his person that he could press to summon his ship back - almost like a homing beacon, if you like.

** At the beginning, in the cockpit, Mal and Book did not know Tracy was listening in on their conversation. Once he grabbed the gun, Tracy wasn't letting the crew explain the plan to him - he was ranting and raving and pointing his weapon and throwing out insults and generally not allowing them to talk. Then, he shot Wash and proceeded to take Kaylee hostage as a human shield. And if there's one thing that's going to piss Mal off more than anything, its shooting his crew and holding them hostage.

** He's Captain Malcolm "Sarge" Reynolds. He damned well could have shouted "Shut up and put the rutting gun down, gorramit, we're not actually gonna ''hand you over!'' Instead, he kept telling Wash to call the feds. The whole scene was designed, frankly, to make it seem as if he was hardhearted and cold enough to actually hand over an old friend, and take the easy way out to save his ship. In fact, it did it so well that a character in the show was fooled, with Idiot Ball results; all it would have taken, frankly, would have been him shouting "Gorramit, I'm not actually going to hand you over! We're gonna get them in the ship by telling them we will, and then we will shoot them!" Instead, he gets all pissy, which frankly makes no sense, since we know that, given the choice between defusing gunplay with words, or shooting someone, he tends to prefer words if at all possible. Instead, in this sequence, he chose to '''antagonize''' someone holding a ''gun'' and pointing it at various members of his crew - an old friend, in fact, as well as a former subordinate infantryman, who almost certainly would have believed him (even had he been lying, which he wasn't) when he said the plan was to make it look like they were going to hand Tracy over, but only to lure the cops aboard.

** The infrantryman, who, as previously mentioned, ''was pointing a gun at the crew''? There's more evidence Tracy would've thought he was lying. Also, Mal was reasonably pissed at Tracy putting Kaylee-who's basically Mal's little sister-in danger. You're expecting both of them to be thinking straight, contrary to ''the scene itself''.
** Another important thing to remember is that when Jayne distracted Tracy, he turned to point his gun at Jayne. Tracy's already demonstrated a willingness to shoot Mal's crew, and he couldn't take the risk that Tracy would shoot Jayne - expendable or not. Mal's perfectly justified in shooting Tracy at this point. And at this point, pretty much any situation that doesn't involve Tracy dropping his weapon is going to end in him getting a bullet.

** Firstly, in the original shooting script, Book tells Mal that he's got an angle. Then Tracy shows up and starts waving guns around, which (to me) would provoke an immediate disinclination to be helpful to said person. He then immediately makes it clear that he was using Mal and Zoe. So. Not a plot hole ''there'' (shooting script's pretty cool. Give it a read by finding it on Google.). However, those lines didn't make it into the episode, so here's my reasoning. Mal expects his crew to, when the chips are down, do what he says, when he says it. He sends Tracy to hide in a cabin in part because he doesn't entirely trust him, and in part because Tracy's semi-competent, not entirely the brightest and best left out of the way. Tracy wanders up to the bridge and starts waving a gun around, which discinclines Mal toward further conversation. He interrupts attempts at explanation. He makes it clear that he isn't willing to rely on Mal and Zoe - that he doesn't really trust them. Which makes it pretty clear that he's just been using them in the first place. As Mal says "I'll go to hell before I see you turn and bite us for the favor." There is a brief window where Mal might have explained, but Tracy throws that away by waving a gun around and shooting his mouth off, and after that Mal's perfectly willing to push it until Tracy gets shot.

** "The Message" plotline unfolding as it did felt like a direct comparison to "Bushwacked" especially since there seemed to be a lot of Simon/Tracey characterisation comparisons going on even though they barely had any scenes together. In both episodes, the captain is about to let the enemies of a fugitive on board and fully expects compliance without detailing his plan up front. Simon's bad at talking pretty, Tracey's good at it. Simon's actions prove him dependable and able to either stay calm, or calm down quickly, in a crisis; Tracey panicks easily and his panic increases. Simon didn't know Mal as well as Tracey did and yet found it easier to obey Mal than Tracey did. When panicking, Simon's first instinct was to run, Tracey's first instinct was to attack. If you view the episode as being more of a Kaylee-perspective episode, then it ends up being about the difference between what you dream for in a man and what you should realistically settle for - a man's ability to talk pretty, or his ability to be by your side no matter what happens? Neither Simon nor Tracey are both - one talks pretty, the other will be there when you need him. Which is the better option if you can't have both?

** Regarding the power and advertising - sleep mode and motion sensors?

** The Pax only induced rage in 1% of the population, didn't it? I'd say that, especially with the war, there might have been a push to get it from labs and into real world situations. It would be easy to miss a 1% side effect, and a short testing period would account for the lack of death (the way the scientist made it sound, the people slowly sank into complete complacency to the point of not even caring about surviving). Alternatively, in a lab, you might have doctors making sure that people ate, forcing them to go to bed and back to the tests which I assume would delay the suicide by sloth. There is also the (extremely likely, given what we have seen) possibility that the Alliance didn't create Pax but that it was yet another helpful product by the good people at Blue Sun. Companies in the real world put dangerous substances on the market, and even in our own system drugs sometimes slip through FDA approval only to be recalled when - oops, looks like the tests proved to be inaccurate and the product more dangerous than believed. The difference is that our government rarely dumps the drugs into the air supply, but on the other hand think of how many civilians were exposed to radiation before its effects became entirely understood.

** See further up on the page. The Unification War was brewing at the same time. That leads to the rushing of devastatingly effective weapons like the Pax. And hell, for all we know, Miranda ''was'' a test - the WMD equivalent of a live-fire test. Gather a large but not significant population on a planet as far from civilization as possible and put your gas to work on a planetary scale to see the effects.
** And where does it ''ever'' say the Pax was intended as a weapon? It was intended to [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans create a world without sin]]—that is, as the next step up in social control over whatever the Alliance already had—not "to subdue the Independents." There isn't, if I recall correctly, word ''one'' about it having a military application. And actually, come to think of it, the Unification War only makes the lack of testing worse: they would have had a fresh supply of expendable Independent [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POW POW]]s to experiment on, à la Imperial Japan's Unit 731, and could've been ''nice'' and sure of how Pax would work.
** ''And where does it ''ever'' say the Pax was intended as a weapon?'' It's a gas that renders an entire planet non-violent and cooperative, being developed just a couple years prior to a full-scale war. Do the math. And "no military applications"? It renders an ''entire planet peaceful and non-violent.'' Dropping Pax-laden bombs on a planet = instant pacification without a single shot fired. The Pax, if it worked as advertised, would have been the '''ultimate''' nonlethal weapon. And the Unification War ''hadn't started yet'' by the time Miranda occurred. Kinda hard to test your weapon on [=POW=]s when ''you don't have any because there's no war.'' And there's a difference between testing on [=POW=]s in controlled circumstances and testing on an entire planet - which, in Miranda's case, was controlled circumstances, just on a mind-bogglingly huge scale.

** Do we know how long it took the Pax to subdue/crazify the population of Miranda? Maybe it takes months to really take effect, which wouldn't be very usefull for weaponisation. This might explain why they didn't know it would have an adverse reaction to 0.01% of the sybjects - They tested it for X weeks, it takes X+1 weeks for symptoms to show.

** Except that once you control the atmosphere processors, you control the planet. And the Pax would be the perfect tool to contain popular insurgency - something the Alliance would really have to worry about.

** ''"Plus, if the war was brewing and it was supposed to be a weapon, why not test it on a planet where there was unrest instead of on your own volunteers?"'' What, and set off everyone's evil-plot-o-meter? You test the Pax on an established world that already has established trade and communication, and word ''will'' get out - at the very least, from people who had traveled to that planet or maintained regular communications with those people. With Miranda, they could establish a self-contained planet that they controlled from the ground up, instead of a potentially hostile Border or Rim world - remember, also, that those worlds ''were independent'' prior to the Unification War. The Alliance showing up at an independent planet and testing out a new weapon on it would set off a war anyway.

** The Alliance may have deliberately cut off communications with the planet for security reasons. It's entirely feasible that they had teams on the planet observing operations but that couldn't communicate directly via SubspaceAnsible to keep the project secret. (because, y'know, the whole ''brewing Unification War'' thing.) The fact that ''no one'' knew what happened on Miranda already indicates there was a huge information blackout about the planet anyway - you're not going to keep thirty million people from communicating with their friends and families across the 'Verse without some kind of blanket comms blackout anyway. If they made regular information drops about the progress of the Pax, bu then that information drop started to cease, then they'd likely send an investigation team to find out what was going on, and then....

* In "Out of Gas", when the Serenity's life support is failing--no oxygen, freezing temperatures--the ship's artificial gravity still works. I realize it would have been much more difficult and expensive to make it look like there was no gravity, but a handwave at it would have been nice.

** From what I gathered, each system has a backup system that runs off its own backup power supply. The main systems run off the main reactor. When the main reactor went down, it took the main systems with it, but the backups kicked in - except the backup life support was damaged when the engine blew. The rest of the ship's systems are working on backups, but the life support isn't.

** One thing that seems to hold true in the Firefly 'verse is that people aren't getting smarter (well, except River). History now a days often likes to look at the past and make broad sweeping statements. Almost every war you examine will have a single battle that "turned the tides" or "made defeat inevitable", sometimes years before the war even ends. It seems likely to me that the same is done in the 'verse. Serenity Valley was a devastating lost, and one that - in hindsight - clearly marked the defeat of the Browncoats. I'm willing to bet that if we ever heard of the original settlers who came from Earth-That-Was, they were all noble, brave, sober, and couldn't even cut down a tree without being forced to tell their father.

** I'd go with the contrary nature cloaked by Cowboy English - let's face it, he deliberately wears a brown coat in Alliance-friendly bars on Unification Day.

** Well, it may be more of a matter of capability over the outright "value" of the horror involved. Mal simply can't ''do'' anything with River. All she is is an insane person with vague, erratic psychic powers with no actual proof to link her to the Alliance beyond Simon's own testimony - which is not going to be enough to implicate a government. Miranda, on the other hand, ''has'' proof - millions of bodies, and entire world destroyed, years of cannibal rape pirates rampaging about, etc. Mal ''can'' prove that they were behind that. He really can't prove anything regarding River.

** Also, I think that one of the major themes of the movie is that at the start, Mal is still simply self-centered and focused on himself and his crew. "I just want to go my way." It isn't until the Operative outright murders one of his family and destroys settlements filled with his friends that Mal is really galvanized into action. What we're seeing in the movie is a full swing with Mal's character arc - he starts out the Battle of Serenity as an idealistic fighter struggling against the Alliance, he collapses into an angry, tired, selfish thief just trying to avoid getting into trouble, and finally swings back around into the righteous warrior he was years ago. That's fairly realistic CharacterDevelopment.
** I think one of the strongest moments in the film is when Mal is giving his RousingSpeech to the crew, and talks about the Alliance making people "better" - and he stops and looks down at River. I always felt that there was a huge amount of unspoken communication in that short look, as if Mal was apologizing to River for never fighting for her, and at the same time saying "this is for you, too." The whole mini-crusade Mal goes on isn't just for the people of Miranda, its also for River.

** Because there's countless phrases in the modern lexicon that don't terribly make a lot of sense that are used to refer to old places or times, e.g. The Middle Ages. All it takes is a phrase or word that sticks and people run with. "Earth That Was" doesn't sound terribly out of place to me - to the point that [[EarthThatWas its a trope.]]

** Tried to kill a crewman in cold blood? If she'd wanted to kill Jayne, she could have - all she did was slash him across the chest with a relatively shallow cut. She could have done a ''lot'' more damage. And no repurcussions? "She's to stay confined to her room at all times. You take her to the infirmary, the kitchen, you come to me first, understand?" This appears to be fully in effect in that episode, as the only times we see her on the ship outside of Mal's presence, she's confined to her room. There's also the fact that she's mentally unstable, so Mal seems willing to forgive quite a bit for that, and its quite clear throughout the series that he has a ''very'' soft spot for her. Also, a major part of "Ariel" is that Simon is finally developing a real treatment for River, which comes out in the subsequent episode, and it makes sense that Mal would lessen up on River if she starts mentally improving. There's also the issue that ''Jayne betrayed them'', and Mal developing his suspicions about River's powers, which might give Mal a good idea of why River may have attacked him.
** Mal being "soft" on River is definitely a consistent part of his character. Note how he treats her in the movie. He brings her back on the ship even after she goes on a psychotic rampage, though he takes steps to confine her, which matches his reaction to her violent outburst in "Ariel" - she's effectively locked in her room and Mal gives Simon a stern reminder of what his responsibilities are. Mal ''does'' treat her differently than he does Jayne, but that's because while River's actions aren't really her fault due to her insanity, Jayne's were premeditated acts of betrayal. ''That's'' why Mal reacts so violently to Jayne. Once Simon's medications start taking hold, River is released in "War Stories."

** The above argument is a bit of a slippery slope- given that it was the culture into which Saffron was supposedly raised. It's close to the implication that all arranged marriages are legalized rape, which is a bit much even for Joss Whedon. Saffron's own (false) explanation about the kind of horrible men she watched other women married off to shows that in "the reality of her lie" she felt herself fortunate enough to have Mal. Even if their culture in general is filled with unpleasant arrangements, she gives ZERO indication that she's not pleased with the pairing. From her (fictional) point of view- Saffron sees Mal as her husband and from her (pretend) point of view there's nothing wrong with them having sex. But, our culture is superior (and the one true culture). Of course.

** River could have simply gotten them on loan from Kaylee, at first - I wouldn't be surprised if Kaylee has some hand-me-downs she's holding onto that River could have worn. After that, it would be a simple issue of Simon asking Kaylee to buy River some clothes the next time they're in port, and Simon paying with his own money from his cut.

** Additionally, there is a perfectly good reason to use artificial gravity if you've invented it - it prevents bone and muscle decay. It's a very serious problems for present-day astronauts. They spend a few months in space and then proceed to spending a few months rehabilitating from loss of bone density. Without a need for it, your body will not automatically stay equipped for the stresses of gravity.

** Incorrect. Watch "Safe" - when River reads everyone's mind, note Simon's reaction; he isn't confused or surprised at all. At best, he's terrified. He ''knows'' she's psychic, but he's hiding this from the crew because he's already got enough issues with her mental instability. If the crew learned she was psychic, they'd be even more nervous around her, and worse still, Mal would want to exploit her abilities - which he does pretty quickly once he learns exactly what she can do. Simon was ''acting'' confused and skeptical because he was trying to hide her abilities.

** Actually, she very well could have found that by being on his ship. There's a thing people keep called "journals," after all. Early clearly keeps some momentos of his past around the ship, so him having a journal - even if it is something stored on a computer - makes perfect sense.

** Mal point blank stated he had no intention of using it. I think he was thinking of having a dignified death - going into a suit and dying that way does smack of having panicked at the last. I therefore saw it as an issue of pride.

* I'm not really sure this counts as a Headscratcher, but was anyone else bothered by the "What a vision you are in your fine dress — it must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days to get you into that getup. 'Course, your daddy tells me it takes the space of a schoolboy's wink to get you out of it again" line? I mean, yes, knocking the AlphaBitch down a peg when she's being mean is cool, but did it have to be through slut-shaming? Issues like that aside, it also doesn't really make sense for a place where Companions are considered a part of upper-class society, though I suppose that could be justified.
** There's a difference between a Companion and a simple prostitute. Companions don't just provide sex, they provide counseling, advice, and spiritual assistance. There's the difference, and even then, there's some indications Companions aren't as respected by some, judging by how Atherton Wing treats Inara. Also, one needs to consider that the upper-class ball in that episode was partially inspired by Victorian society, where, on the one hand, upper-class courtesans very similar to Companions were common in aristocratic circles and highly respected. At the same time, the society also had some intense social taboos on sexuality, especially for women. To a degree, that episode reflects the exact same social taboos and hypocrisy that existed in Victorian society - a refined, trained, and educated prostitute is respected, whereas a noblewoman who is promiscuous is disrespected.

** It was actually a brilliant piece of showcasing how girls bully each other, tearing apart someone's self-image and self-confidence and making them feel like the dirt beneath your feet, all the while under the pretence of being 'helpful' and 'compassionate' - it's an absolutely vicious form of bullying that's a very common form among females of all age-groups. Whoever wrote those lines was probably very familiar with real-life female bullying. It was well scripted and both the bullies and victim played it very well.

** Because KAYLEE or INARA is the one you want to take orders from should something happen to Mal or Zoe? If Mal & Zoe are gone there's a pretty good chance they are in a combat setting. And while Book would be the correct next choice, nobody KNOWS that (though they suspect it). Jayne would lead in a crisis-- once the crisis was over the crew would likely disband (if they survived).
** What TV show did ''you'' watch? Because in the ''actual'' show, when a crisis situation hit, Jayne was ''not'' trusted by anyone with command, and was in fact drugged unconscious - an act that Mal ''approved'' of. So judging by how everyone acted in the series, yes, they ''would'' rather listen to Inara or Kaylee than trust Jayne to be in command.

** For Simon, keep in mind that A) Mal ''does not like him'' and B) Simon was outright going against his authority by refusing to let River be taken on the job. Being a member of Mal's crew is a two-way street; he'll cover your ass and keep you safe, but he expects you to follow his orders, or he'll come down on you hard. A good example of this was in "Out of Gas" - Wash refuses to obey Mal's order to go to the bridge and assess the damage to the ship. Mal's response is to slam him against the wall and force him to follow orders. Simon is refusing to let Mal take River with him on the bank job, so Mal is turning hostile toward him.

** Another thing to consider: Book's gone. Inara's gone. Who knows how recently these things happened? It's entirely possible that both events were fairly recent and put Mal in a foul mood, and seeing as he isn't exactly fond of Simon found it easiest to take it out on him, and Simon arguing with him is even more frustrating. In fact, the Tams--being the one left Mal's known for the shortest amount of time--could be viewed as potentially the next ones to leave. Mal, by distancing Simon and River in his mind from the rest of the crew, could be trying to make the idea of them leaving less potentially painful.

** Being as he's the captain of her ship and thus still her superior, yeah, she would still be following his orders. As an ex-military, it's probably engrained in Zoe--and Mal too, for that matter--to follow the orders of their superiors. It just so happens that Zoe's superior is the same as during the war, and Mal doesn't really have any superiors anymore.

** And my wife and I both took each other's (we both have the hyphenated name - EX: Smith-Jones). So are we both weak?
** It's not inconceivable that Zoe and Wash wanted to have the same last name, especially if they were planning on having kids at some point, and as Wash goes by his last name--or rather a nickname based on his last name--it would be more practical for Zoe to give up hers.
** Maybe Zoe's maiden name was stupid and she didn't like it. I'm a strong, independent woman, whatever that means, and I dislike my unpronounceable, ugly last name. I don't want to go to the trouble of changing it, but if I get a socially acceptable, commonplace excuse--like getting married--it's gone.

** Not all of the "strong, independent women" throughout the last 1000 years of English marriage customs who gave up their names when they married into their husband's family were all acting out of character when they did so. In fact, it's only recently become a thing to not take the husband's name. Aside from the hyphenated names (which I think are stupid because someone out there has hyphenated the name Fitzwilliams-McGillicuddy and force their poor kid to write that everywhere), the few females in recent history that haven't taken their husband's name are ones with "brand recognition." Actresses, usually, who were made famous under their maiden name and can't make a marriage last more than a six months. The other exception I can name is the Queen of England, who kept her mane for the same reason the English kings of old kept their names. Zoe is neither of those things. And she is also "strong and independent" enough to just go with custom if she feels like it, because why not? Her taking his name is a sign of her devotion. It'd be a little weird to make a guy nicknamed Wash change his name from Washburne. Plus, it's pulling from the culture of the 1800s, when they were a little traditional about such things.

** Also, Serenity has limited bunk space. Book, Simon, and River each take a bunk. That leaves, at best, a couple of bunks for passengers to sleep in. Keep in mind also that carrying passengers is unusual (they were only taking on passengers on Persephone because they needed the money desperately) and passengers don't pay much ("Our fares don't pay a tenth of what you make on one of your 'jobs'" Book notes.) Short version, unless a passenger is paying a ''ton'' of money, then they're not getting on - and a passenger willing to pay that much to move on a civilian freighter like Serenity is likely not up to any good, as they can afford better accommodations.

** At the time they were in the shuttle, she was still more or less on his side. He didn't know for sure she'd rigged his ship, and aside from going a little crazy while they were in the house, they still worked together to escape. He had no more reason to tie her up when they got to the shuttle than he has to tie up, say, Jayne. After that, he wasn't in any position to do anything, and Inara--the only person who saw her after that point--certainly isn't a cold-blooded killer.
** Don't forget that Mal also has a chivalrous streak and he's very vulnerable to women who are, well, vulnerable. That's a major part of why he allowed River on his ship even after she proved dangerous, and it's why he was so susceptible to Saffron's charms the first time. Saffron affected her vulnerable, emotionally-damaged woman mode, and Mal walks right into it - and Saffron says straight to his face that he walked right into it and he's one of the most gullible saps she's ever seen.

** Its probably relatively safe for them to leave the ship on autopilot. Remember that, as Mal himself put it, they're "in the middle of no and where" and there's no StealthInSpace - if anything gets relatively close, the sensors can alert them. Two crewmembers are still awake (Kaylee and Book), and all of the main crew are a short ladder and a half-dozen steps away from the cockpit.

** Most of what we know about Earth-That-Was, why they left it, and how they left comes from a school lesson taught to young children--they looked about 10 or so, which would be grade 5 in the real world. The history you learn in grade 5 is pretty simplified. Maybe if River were a 20 year old college student majoring in Earthly History in that flashback, we would have gotten a more detailed, logical answer to these issues.

** It's a bar in a space western. Of ''course'' people are going to start bar brawls and get thrown through the window. Having it a hologram instead of window--which would need to be replaced--is just the bartender being smart.

** Additionally, the Serenity crew may not be this kind of people, but some in the 'verse must be - when I stub my toe, I can let out a ClusterFBomb and all the imprecations in English against whatever just hurt me. I wouldn't be caught dead saying anything more than a ''very'' minced oath in Vietnamese, my mother tongue. I just have an aversion to swearing in Viet because it feels much worse than English. (I'm from a similar background and upbringing as the Tams, for reference.) Presumably the Chinese swears provide this kind of distance to English speakers in the 'verse.

In short, the ships were built and engineered by people who expected that somewhere along the line, someone was going to be firing a gun inside the ship and didn't want everyone to get killed by a stray bullet. The vessels and space stations are built with this in mind. You don't need any kind of {{Technobabble}} explanation for that - just good hull engineering.

** Why should they mention it any other episode where it isn't really a plot point. It likely would have been referenced in a later episode if the series had gone on further. There probably is a way to bypass landlock - Wash looked as if he was doing exactly that when he was locked - but these aren't plot points so they aren't referenced at any point. As noted above, the series barely got half a season, so land locks and methods to get around them might have been mentioned later.

** They could want him as leverage against his sister. Furthermore, the Alliance/Blue Sun don't see themselves as doing evil for the sake of evil - if they think it'll help River's emotional stability or even her happiness as their asset, they've a good reason to bring him in with her, and they get to feel they're on the moral high ground.

* The plan for the heist is to dump the loot into the trash container, which the automatic droid routinely carries to the incinerator, and then reprogramm the droid so that it instead delivers it to the desert. They do it by hacking some circuit boards (navigational, perhaps)...in the container itself. Huh. Why would the designers put the navigational boards in the container? It's not a mailing service - the droid normally delivers all the containers to the same destination, and even if there are several incinerators, certainly the droid can be directed to the specific one from an external control station. The way it is, they had to increase the cost of the containers and provide some kind of interface between the droid and the container, and for what? There doesn't even seem to be any way to programm the delivery from inside the house, which would make at least some sense, so what's the point?
** Actually, it makes sense when you consider the drones' range. Those drones can apparently transport materials to and from any location on the planet. Whatever company or government service is operating the drone is likely working across the planet, servicing hundreds or thousands or even millions of sites. They're going to be transporting many different kinds of garbage, whether it it would be regular civilian trash to nuclear waste to chemical byproducts to recyclable material to animal waste and everything in between. Different types of trash are going to go to different areas. It would be easier just to insert a destination in each container than code up a fairly complex system in each drone that has the drone determine where everything is supposed to go - plus that cuts back on manpower costs. And to be honest, for a society of the scale and tech sophistication of this type, loading containers with a simple interface containing transport coordinates is would be pretty cheap and easy; they can make flying cities and terraform entire worlds, so putting in a cheap computer interface less complex than a modern cell phone would be trivially easy.

** Related: Remember in Heart of Gold, she admits those girls ''are'' whores. There's still a place for normal prostitutes in the 'verse. Plus, Inara has been shown choosing clients that would not be traditionally attractive (the adorkable virgin from the mudder community, for example).

** The RPG says that to get on the guild list the person has to pay a subscription. They don't detail whether companions take non-subscription clients, but I'd think that poses a financial problem in that the guild would not get a cut of such a transaction. Doesn't make business sense for the guild - they're offering a service and protection to the companions as well as registration that gives the companions prestige. Surely they can't make enough money for the lavish training houses we see with JUST a yearly membership fee from the companions - especially a companion like Inara who seems to have trouble getting work on the rim for weeks to months at a time. It's a business arrangement and everyone profits obscenely. I also seem to recall there was either a scan of the legal documents for a companion in one of the books or on the Serenity Blue Ray DVD extra features, and it's a pretty rigid contract about subscription fees and guild fees. See it here: http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=38162 Side note - it doesn't actually require a yearly medical examination, which was another hint about Inara's backstory.
** That actually happens in real life. Call girls for the rich and famous have certain level of choice regarding the acceptance of clients and in some countries prostitution is not only legal, is regulated by law and have real life guilds and in some case government's supervision, giving the sex workers certain amount of independence in their choosing (unlike the stereotypical street worker under the pimp’s fist). Besides it’s true that Companions are not really hookers, they’re more like European Courtesans or Japanese Geishas or, again, real life luxury sex workers.

** It's vital to hold it, but Niska's best men aren't going to be trying to capture the ship, they're going to be guarding Niska and his captives. Also, where's Zoe said to be a great strategist? Also also, you work with what you have--front line fighters are going to have to be the best fighters. What's your alternative? Zoe and Jayne stay and guard the ship while Simon and Kaylee go in to get Mal? Zoe and Wash were the only ones who were going to go because A. Jayne said outright he wasn't going, and B. as you pointed out, Simon, Kaylee, River, and Book ''aren't soldiers''. Fact is, when you're attacking someplace full of competent guards, you send in your best fighters, and you leave the inexperienced ones back to a secure point with plenty of cover.

** He was extremely religious before and during the war, and the loss convinced him that God disagreed with him politically. Note in the Battle of Serenity Valley, he refers to the ships coming to save them as "our angels"--and then it turns out that they're the ''enemy's'' angels. Sure, there were probably a million reasons the Independents lost that battle and then the war, but from the perspective of a grunt on the ground with very strong faith in his cause and his religion, it probably felt like [[DiabolusExMachina God personally handing victory to the Alliance]].

The last scene in Objects in Space doesn't make sense to me, time-wise. The episode takes place in the middle of the night. But the last scene clearly takes place the next day- ''why'' would they wait that long to get the bullet out of Simon's leg? I understand Zoe would need ''some'' preparation, but surely not 6 or 7 hours' worth.

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** Look at the Middle East. Has "Western Policy" of Democracy and Corporatism endeared themselves to people there? How about our other attempts to "help" people by bringing them our wonderful way of life? It is ego and hubris at its best to try and impose a one-size fits all on everyone, not to mention...well, evil. Controlling people, even for their supposedly own good is evil.

** A historical note: Stalinist Russia did not have protesters or a moderating influence. Stalin deliberately used the Great Terror, purges, political infighting, deportations, and so on and so forth in order to destroy the will to oppose that would otherwise ferment in the population. It's kind of hard to protest when the NKVD snatches you up, tortures you to death in the Lubyanka dungeons, while your family is either shot or sent to gulags as enemies of the people. A good example is Nikolai Bukharin, who could've been a moderating influence on the Stalinist regime - if he wasn't publicly tried and shot for counter-revolutionary crimes. I wager the Alliance, even at its worst, has still a ways to go to come even close to the horror that is Stalinist Russia. Stalinist Russia, however, is not pure Marxism.
*** When he retired to his Dacha in late June, 1941, in the face of the (initially devastating) German invasion, he expected to be shot or arrested for his failures. This didn't happen largely because the purges had been so effective. The people with the requisite connections, skills and ambition to replace him had all been murdered - e.g. every original member of the Politburo (other than Stalin) and every army commissar had been purged. There was nobody within Russia who could "moderate" Stalin.

*** When he retired to his Dacha in late June, 1941, in the face of the (initially devastating) German invasion, he expected to be shot or arrested for his failures. This didn't happen largely because the purges had been so effective. The people with the requisite connections, skills and ambition to replace him had all been murdered - e.g. every original member of the Politburo (other than Stalin) and every army commissar had been purged.

** SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay. There is no StealthInSpace. Flying around the Reavers simply leaves a long thermal wake that you can easily track, and since Miranda is very far out in territory that no one goes to, no one will be out there but the Reavers. The heat trail can be easily spotted and followed, and if someone's projected path shows them circling ''around'' your large and obvious fleet, that means they're trying to avoid you. That's a surefire sign that they're not one of you.

** I think the discussion of Shan Yu at the beginning of the next episode lends support to the above answer. Paraphrasing from memory, the quote goes something like "Hold him over the volcano's edge, and you will finally meet the man". Jayne's personal "volcano's edge" was the airlock, and his reaction convinced Mal there was some good in him, albeit [[HiddenHeartOfGold deeply buried]]. I didn't watch the original run on Fox, but I'll bet the "Previously on..." recap would have transitioned directly from the airlock scene to Book reading the Shan Yu quote.

** I think the discussion of Shan Yu at the beginning of the next episode lends support to the above answer. Paraphrasing from memory, the quote goes something like "Hold him over the volcano's edge, and you will finally meet the man". Jayne's personal "volcano's edge" was the airlock, and his reaction convinced Mal there was some good in him, albeit [[HiddenHeartOfGold deeply buried]].