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* OR Jasmine has learned the error of her ways and decided that peace without freedom (which is what the alliance wants) is not worth it. She has no big plans to take over the world, she's just in favor of freewill now.
** Please tell me there is fanfiction of this.
== Wash didn't die ==
Taking out the whole funeral scene, all that's there is that Wash was [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice]], didn't participate in the battle with the reavers... Now, they have a brilliant or "Gifted" doctor, who's been shown to know his trade pretty well, add in there the fact that a this is 500 years in the future, and we keep on making more and more medical advances every day, and Wash could end up in a coma for some months - while Simon fixes him up - and then he'd be good as new. He's too good to die!
* But they had a funeral for him to let people think that he's dead while he's in his critical condition.
* Ignoring the [[Fridge Logic]], I kinda like this theory.
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== Firefly and [[Halo]] share a 'verse. ==
Now, at first this looks like an Epileptic Tree. However, bear with me. In some supplementary materials (on Halo.Xbox.Com) it is said that humanity occasionally discovered planets with humans at different stages of development that they knew no ships had ever gone to. So, lets say a large group of ships leave Earth, some splitting off from the pack, taking those worlds. Most however, go to a single solar system, which becomes the one in Firefly. The Alliance fudges a few things, teaches lies, and everyone believes that the Earth was used up and they left. Firefly takes place in 2517, Pre-Human-Covenant War. Even if a Covenant ship showed up, it might get destroyed, and they would have no reason to attack human worlds yet. With there being Insurrectionists in the Halo 'verse, this would make perfect sense. The Pax may have even been made from a derelict Flood ship. It's not like the Alliance has any morals (come on, the Academy and Miranda prove that) and they lie to the people a lot (again, Academy, Miranda, {{spoiler|Book's past}}, and more), so why not. Who knows, maybe the Chief and Cortana are about to land on a Core World.
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== One of the moons is [[Borderlands|Pandora]]. ==
It's not like Borderlands has enough backstory to refute this claim, and we didn't exactly go into all the corporations in the Firefly universe, so it's possible.
* Seems unlikely. Borderlands definitely had weirder guns than anything seen on Firefly, plus the Guardians of the Vault don't really fit with the lack of aliens in the 'Verse. Also, The Clap-traps are definitely intelligent, and the ''Serenity'' Roleplaying game mentions that there are no human level intelligent robots.
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** Caleb?! That misogynistic serial killer? No way he'd ever be with a woman.
** Misogyny, check, serial killer, actually yeah, ain't exactly a pacifist life style he's living. But psychopath, not so much.
** How's Mal a misogynist? He has a female second-in-command who he greatly respects, he seemed absolutely shocked and horrified at Saffron's subservience and her expectation that he'd kill her because he didn't want her, he gets furious whenever someone (besides himself) treats Inara badly for her job, and he greatly admired Nandi and her strength in keeping her whorehouse together.
** I'd say he's arguably more likely to trust women than he is men, judging by his relationships with his crew, which is the opposite direction of hating women. On the other hand, Mal probably WOULD ask Zoe or Inara to make him a sandwich just for the lols when they tell him to go to hell, but I'm not sure that counts as misogyny so much as having a really warped sense of humour.
== Jayne is a [[Girl Genius|Jaeger]]. ==
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== Inara is 600 years old and originally from Earth-that-was. ==
In "Serenity" (the pilot, not the movie), when the Reavers are passing by the ship, Inara is seen with a mysterious tube. [[Jossed|Joss Whedon has said]] that it is ''not'' for suicide, as one would believe if the Reavers were as bad as made out to be. It's never explained what the thing is for. A line from "Out of Gas" is also said to be related to her past: "I don't want to die at all." This leads to the premise that Inara is older than her appearance would have you believe. In this case, ''much'' older. Just think about her analogy in "The Message": "It would be like fencing the Mona Lisa". Mal didn't get it, and it may be that no one alive today knows what the Mona Lisa is, because it didn't survive the trip from Earth-that-was. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150701011029/http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/Inara (cited here)] This theory opens the door to offshoot theories.
* Her birthday is given on the Serenity [[Blu-Ray]]. Records COULD theoretically be falsified, and maybe she's stopped adding years to her birthday count like women sometimes do nowadays, but supposedly she's 29.
** In Heart of Gold, Nandi says something like "you haven't aged a day." The age discrepancy may not be actually noticeable and Nandi is being polite, or it might be the age discrepancy IS noticeable. This could hint at some form of rejuvenation therapy, or this could be taken as completely innocuous greeting comments and a mislead.
* Couldn't Inara just have a good classical education, where Mal does not?
** Well, in "Jaynestown," Simon, who also had a good education, compared Mudder's Milk to the beer given slaves in ancient Egypt. So, yes. But it could be both.
** Uhh, Ancient Egypt was <s>2000</s> ''3,000'' years ago. Firefly is 500 years in the future. ''We'' still remember it, why shouldn't ''they''?
*** Because at some point in between we had to desperately flee the earth to find an inhabitable planet. Much history may have been lost in the process.
**** As an example, Western Civilization temporarily lost most, if not all, of the culture and knowledge of [[Ancient Grome]] during [[The Dark Ages]]. That's why they're called [[The Dark Ages]], after all. If it weren't for Muslim Scholars who worked to preserve ancient texts, all that knowledge might still be lost.
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* [[Word of God]] is that Inara is dying. I don't know whether this is compatible or not, but I have to admit that the argument for a long-lived Inara is compelling.
* But why would Inara be getting ready to inject herself to make herself younger, in the middle of a Reaver attack? It seems like a strange time, or motivation for a cosmetic medical treatment...
** Maybe by rejuvenating herself, she also improves her combat skills and general toughness, allowing her to fight off the Reavers more adeptly.
** Or it could have rendered her to a temporary death-like coma, safe from the Reavers who enjoy torturing living victims, but have no interest in those who are already dead.
** The syringe you see in the Pilot is very simple -- it is a "suicide pill" or "cyanide pill". She injects herself with it, and dies fast and painlessly, so she doesn't have to experience being raped and beaten to death. That, or it is the same drug Simon and River use in "Ariel" (also, the guy in "The Message") to make themselves look dead, but then that doesn't really make sense -- reavers normally skin their victims. I doubt she'd want to be skinned alive.
** Joss [[Jossed]] the suicide syringe in the Serenity episode commentary. See above. It's not a suicide pill. It COULD be the medicine used in Ariel and the Message, and technically, it's implied that Reavers like their victims alive, and leave them alone when dead, so that might actually work. The question to ask is if it's the drug they use later to feign death, why does Inara have it?
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** Inara's mysterious syringe is for River's {{spoiler|Cruciamentum (see ''Buffy'' episode "Helpless")}}.
* This has been [[Word of God|explicitly denied]] by [[Jossed|Joss]]. But what does he know? [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|He just makes the shows and movies.]]
*** He just can't write anything that is not about a slayer-like power girl.
**** So he's like [[Frank Miller]], but with kick-ass chicks instead of whores?
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* It's also possible Jayne has been playing stupid for so long he, on occasion, [[Becoming the Mask|Becomes The Mask]]
** The impression I got from the series and movie is that while Jayne is quite intelligent, he's extremely poorly educated.
** I don't think he's all that smart. I think he's just well-rounded in the areas where he has a lot of experience, but definitely not stupid, just ignorant.
*** Mind that this troper(the one that believes Jayne is poorly educated) subscribes to [[wikipedia:Theory of multiple intelligences|the theory of multiple intelligences]], and believes that intelligence shows itself in different ways. Jayne's aptitude is more in line with firearms and combat and likely has a more bodily-kinesthetic inclination than the rest of the crew. Mind you, I'm not saying he's a [[Genius Ditz]] or anything, just saying that he's more intelligent than his crude nature and lack of any sort of formal education lets on. Not as smart as Simon, Book, Inara, or Kaylee(in no particular order), but on a comparable level to Mal, Zoe, and Wash. He just has the rotten luck of having the least amount of schooling for anyone on the crew, which is why his competence only shows in his areas of experience; fighting.
*** The Serenity RPG manual gives stats for Jayne, and he has a 4 in intelligence, just below the average intelligence of 6. Jayne does occasionally get confused by fairly straightforward conversation from the other crew even when there aren't many big words to get confused by that just being ignorant would suggest. He's also shown to be impulsive and not think things through. However, I do think that Jayne has some cunning, and he's clearly good with guns and fighting.
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** If you watch "Objects in Space" with this theory in mind, Early´s answer to Simon blaming him for beating up a Shepherd gets a completely new meaning. "''This is no Shepherd''"
* {{spoiler|Confirmed in the comic book ''The Shepherd's Tale''. [[Or So I Heard]].}}
* Maybe he held some other kind of high-level position that didn't expire, like being a magistrate? This would command the respect of the operatives, but wouldn't mean he would have to have sharp combat reflexes.
* [[Jossed]]. Possibly. {{spoiler|He ''was'' a high-ranking Alliance officer, among many other things (Alliance interrogator, Independent mole, etc.) but his precise rank was not made clear. He ''could'' have been an Operative; if so he may have been singlehandedly responsible for the Independents lasting as long as they did with his spying implants.}}
* He also thought, in "Objects in Space", something along the lines of, "I don't give a damn if you're innocent or not. So where does that leave you?" assuming that [[Unreliable Narrator|River]] wasn't hallucinating that bit. As an Operative, it's entirely possible that he didn't have a moral compass beyond what the Alliance told him.
* Derrial Book is not his real name; it's just the name he took for himself. The Operative in the film--and presumably all Operatives--didn't have a name.
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== ''Firefly'' is an unintentional prequel of ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]''. ==
It has been hinted that Earth is the true planet of origin for the Colonials, not Kobol. It is entirely possible that, over centuries, the technologies seen in ''Firefly'' could lead to the creation of the Cylons, FTL travel, and such.
* The planets and mythologies would need to be renamed as well; seeing as how the ''Firefly'' version of humanity already has gotten a bunch of things missed up about Earth after only a few centuries, and the [[Real Life]] example of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul, those are perfectly good possibilities.
* On the other hand, the Shepherds seem not too far from Christianity as known today, and the only other major religions seen are Buddhism and Judaism. Neither is the kind to go polytheist easily.
** In the time needed to forget their true origin on Earth-That-Was? Plenty of time for new religions or mutations of old ones to come about, and old ones to be supplanted.
*** Or they could be separate developments of mankind happening simultaneously. The Alliance has more than 12 planets. Heck, it probably has lost more than 12 planets.
* The finale of BSG didn't allow for this, but I think BSG and Firefly should have been concurrent-and the battlestar should have eventually jumped into the Firefly system(s) while searching for/after finding Earth.
** The finale for BSG doesn't preclude it. First of all, there could be a closed time loop. "All this has happened before and will happen again," remember? However, moreover, it's perfectly reasonable ''how'' it could happen: Firefly's worlds have no FTL drive, but they had to get there somehow, and sublight travel to a habitable multi-star system with of lots of worlds that can be reached without FTL from one another would take eons... even using generation ships would have completely changed society so much, new alphabets would have arisen, religious would have completely changed, and there would most likely not be any discernible races left. Hell, they'd be virtually Eloi by the time they got there. So no, maybe there's no FTL, but that doesn't mean there never * was* FTL, to get there from Earth-that-was. However, that doesn't mean it was jump-drive of any sort through a traversible wormhole or a self-looped warp field or any of the typical "how do we do this without any of that pesky relativity" blackboxes usually used in Sci-Fi. Instead, perhaps just, with control of inertia (they do have artificial gravity, so they have inertial control) they were able to overcome the inherent problems of post-C acceleration causing mass gain and turning everyone into splotches before they even got to c. So they can travel faster than light, as if massless -- and therefore every particle in them effectively duplicates the effect of tachyons theoretical effect and travels backwards in time, but without decelerating, so they get very far away but by the time they do it's a long time ago in a part of the galaxy far, far away. And then they colonise Kobol and then make robots, and some of those robots go off and found a new earth, and become biological, and then discover resurrection technology and travel (this time in sleeper ships) back to the colonies which have forgotten Kobol now and do all the stuff that happens in the new BSG series, and then eventually end up on earth ziddly years ago and then eventually at the end we start making robots, and Six is right, we don't make Cylons, but we have enough intraspecies wars that we screw up the planet so badly and use it all up, that we have to take off in ships to find a new world, etc.
*** You're still screwing with relativity there. Mass gain happens as you approach c, not when you go beyond it. If something is massless, it travels at c (no exceptions). To go beyond c, you need to have imaginary mass (yes, imaginary, not negative. Your mass needs to be a multiple of ''i''). However, you don't ''need'' FTL travel to avoid generation ships. You just need to get sufficiently close to c, and by the power of time dilation, you can reach anywhere within a single human lifespan (as measured by the people living on board, of course).
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#To be shown treating the crew, explaining how they never seem to need to go to an Alliance hospital.
As of the end of Serenity, two of those jobs are done. River is "cured", and he's got together with Kaylee. We know that in other Joss shows, finally getting (back) together with someone is a kiss of death. Point 3 -- well, they'd managed all right until Simon arrived, so you've got to figure that Mal, Jayne and/or Zoe know a bit of field medicine.
So, he's fulfilling no particular dramatic role, and he's probably worth more dead than alive in terms of angst for Kaylee and River, and indeed for Mal -- "part of the crew" and all.
* On the other hand, in ''Ariel'' we see him in the role of "budding criminal mastermind." Simon's intelligence and ability to convincingly impersonate an upper class Alliance citizen would still be useful. In [[Five-Man Band]] terms, Simon makes a pretty good Smart Guy or [[The Face]] for the group.
* Keeping in mind Serenity was created to pacify a livid fanbase who wanted the series to continue, or at least receive some closure. Had the show not been cancelled, plots would have likely been expanded on much more broadly, Kaylee and Simon not getting together as quick as they did, River not recovering as quickly, The Reavers remaining as an unseen, [[Nightmare Fuel]] antagonistic force who's origin's would continue to be a mystery. Jubal Early making a comeback. The possibilities go on forever. If we got a movie at all, the expanded plots would have made Serenity much, much different.
** I heard somewhere that the whole Miranda storyline (including Wash dying) would have happened somewhere around mid Season 2 if the show hadn't been cancelled.
* "''We know that in other Joss shows, finally getting (back) together with someone is a kiss of death.''" Hmm, Willow and Oz dated without dying. Xander and Cordelia dated without dying. Buffy and Riley dated without dying. They didn't ''stay'' together, but that's par for the course with any teen drama or soap opera.
** [[Word of God]] said that Oz would have died had Seth Green not left the show when he did. And the other two relationships may not have had either partner die, but the breakups were train wrecks nonetheless.
== Jayne is in fact completely loyal to Mal ==
Jayne has implied to Mal that Jayne would turn on Mal for a sufficient sum of money, and not a ludicrously large sum either. But when Jayne got an offer from Dobson that has to be high enough, he turned it down. Jayne is loyal to Mal and only keeps up this
* See above under "Jayne is a lot smarter" entry. Jayne betrayed them because he didn't think ''Mal'' considered them crew. When Mal turned on him so viciously, Jayne realized what a big mistake he had made -- he betrayed Mal as well. Even more, in The Big Damn Movie, even though they butt heads during the whole thing, when Mal makes his decision to take on the Reavers and the Alliance at the same time, Jayne doesn't bat an eye. If he was just in it for the money, he would have at least asked for a raise.
** There is, of course, a very wide spectrum between "completely loyal" and "only in it for the money".
*** Really, if Jayne was only in it for the money why would he be flying with ''Mal'' of all the people in the 'verse?
*** Because anyone else either wouldn't hire him or has the cash to pay for someone who doesn't clean his toenails at the dinner table?
**** Episode and scene where that happened, please. 'sides, if you were looking for a capable gun for hire would manners and personal hygiene be your primary concerns? Because whatever else he may be it's clear that Jayne is DAMN GOOD at his job.
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**** Though if you mean "prove that Mal keeps him around not because Jayne's good at his job but because he can't afford a less disgusting mercenary," then I agree with you. Jayne IS good at his job, which is why I think they (mostly) try to overlook Jayne's myriad social flaws.
* Jayne is loyal to Mal and the rest of the Serenity Crew. He sees the presence of Simon and River onboard as a threat to his crew, after all everyone onboard admits having Simon and River onboard makes it harder to avoid the Alliance.. He conspires to get rid of them not for money, but to protect the crew. During Ariel genuinely is ashamed at what he did, but not because he betrayed Mal, because in his mind he didn't, but because he failed to realize that Mal considered Simon and River part of the crew.
== The experiments performed on River are continuations of the ones on [[The X-Files]]. ==
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== Book and Niska served the Alliance together as interrogators or torturers. ==
We already know that Book worked for the Alliance, and that his work was less than moral. In "War Stories," both Niska and Book quote the same Chinese dictator, Xiang Yu. Niska ties his quote to the torturing of Mal and Wash, and Book speculates that the people who worked on River were inspired by his writings. This may be standard teaching material if the Alliance instructs some of its more brutal enforcers. Niska and Book look approximately the same age. They may know each other.
* Additionally, Book knows Niska's first name, and when Niska was mentioned in "The Train Job," Book's tone indicated that he was familiar with him beyond simply knowing him by reputation.
** In "Our Mrs. Reynolds," Book reveals that he knows details of the 'nets' used by criminals to capture spaceships and kill or disable their crews. Maybe Book ''didn't'' know Niska, but knows a lot about him by reputation along with the rest of his knowledge of the criminal underworld? Niska looks to be a major crime lord, after all.
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The Alliance's actions in persecuting an insane girl who may or may not know about the "incident" on Miranda seems a lot like a [[Revealing Coverup]]. What it does is give the people around her a motive to discover the truth and make it public knowledge. Once the truth was out in ''Serenity'', the Alliance decided to stop hunting them. Maybe some high-placed official in the Alliance government wanted the people to know what happened but wouldn't be able to publish it himself, for fear of his life. So he sends the Blue Hands and the Operative against Serenity in order to motivate them to do the work that he couldn't do.
* It was top secret classified materiel that could destroy the Alliance if it ever got out. Of course the Alliance would do everything in it's power to stop anyone from revealing anything about it even if they didn't have proof that the person knew anything. Hundreds of people have been arrested by governments over suspicion that they might know something. Example: Stanley Kubrick and his film crew were interrogated after the filming of Doctor Strangelove because the government thought they might know what the cockpit of a B52 looked like.
* Also, who says that Miranda is the ONLY secret that River knew? As the Operative says, they put the minds behind every major decision in the system in a room with a psychic. She could know every single dirty little secret the Alliance has.
== The Alliance is secretly controlled by [[Terminator|
SkyNet traveled to the future with its chronoporter to escape TechCom when they won the war, and covertly established itself within the future human government formed by the Alliance. The war with SkyNet was the entire reason humanity abandoned Earth, and why AI technology hasn't been developed in five hundred years. Projects like Miranda and the work done on River at the Academy are a new form of human controlling mechanisms started by SkyNet to take over mankind from behind the scenes, to make it easier to purge humanity when the next war began. The Hands of Blue are the next generation of Terminators who use sonic weaponry because, being machines, they are entirely immune to them.
== River was being turned into a super-powered [[Repo! The Genetic Opera|Repo Woman]] ==
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*** Malcolm Reynolds is around fifty years old, and the average life span in the Firefly 'verse is 120. 50-60 years old is like early 30s for them.
** Not mutually exclusive. Maybe she was a Companion/Secret Agent working for the Alliance (you know there have to be some) who left for a while to deal with certain matters, then fled to the frontier when things went sideways. It would explain her "sudden urge" to see the Rim Worlds.
*** This also presumes that Nandi is telling the complete truth.
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== The Reavers' ships are piloted by independent-contractor vampires. ==
Reavers are crazy, ruthless, raping machines, but they have the technical know-how and presence of mind to pilot space ships? It's clear someone else is doing it, and it's probably vampires. The reavers don't want to eat them since they're dead and probably wouldn't taste good, and the vampires get to feed off any spare victims the reavers bring back. Plus, the different sun of the new solar system probably doesn't burn them up (since it seemed to work with Pylea), so they can pilot all they want even with the big, open windows.
* Except that Reavers also like to rape and torture victims. Sure, they wouldn't eat them, but they still have the other two options.
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Both series are [[Space Western|Space Westerns]], and both give off a similar vibe. [[Firefly]] is the [[Trigun]] world's past. Plants were a technology that was eventually abandoned by the Alliance. This works for both the anime version and manga version as one can assume {{spoiler|any other autonomous plants simply decided to go into hiding if they had a reason to do so.}} The whole series is simply taking place on a world forgotten about by the Alliance.
* More likely Project SEEDS was a different set of arc ships sent off in a different direction, and with better terraforming technology.
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A less developed one than River, certainly, but there are two pieces of evidence. One, he is DEFINITELY not 100% there, mentally. Two, when Simon goes after his gun, Jubal tells him "Now is not your time" or something along those lines. Simon didn't make any noticeable sounds or sharp movements, and Jubal had his back completely to him, but still knew what he was going to do. How Jubal got this way is still a mystery, but maybe he's another escapee from the Academy?
* It's quite possible. But if Jubal were an Academy escapee, he'd hardly be likely to take out a contract on River. As soon as he tried to hand her over to the authorities, they'd grab him too. Maybe Jubal just has good combat awareness- he can ''guess'', accurately, when Simon is going to go after his gun, because he knows that Simon is going to try it the first time Jubal's back is turned.
* It could be that he was too old or too weak for the Academy to bother with; it's also entirely possible that they simply never noticed him.
** The Academy is ''definitely'' interested in readers. "The R.Tam Sessions" all but say outright she's got some form of latent psychic powers before they even get started with her.
* Jubal's not an escapee, but a graduate.
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** This Troper thinks it is highly probable that Jubal, The Operative from the movie and possibly even Book were all products of some sort of Alliance breeding, training and indoctrination program connected to, but not the same as, the one River was put through.
*** So all the black guys?
* It's entirely possible that just being a reader makes you slightly unstable - and that increasing your ability makes you more so. In the Serenity [[Role
* It's stated by Simon in the episode Ariel that River is so screwed up because her amygdala was deliberately damaged, the part of the brain that filters emotions, before this from what we can see in Safe she's a perfectly normal, if a bit eccentric, girl and Simon has stated that River was "brilliant" at anything she put her mind too, so obviously she was already some latent talent already there, and the Academy just augmented it, that, and what they put her through in their tests, are the reason she's insane. Jubal is just a messed up individual, and stated to be in the directors commentary to be "almost psychic", so he could have some slight latent talent
* Unfortunately, this is contradicted by [[Word of God]]. In the DVD commentary, Whedon states that in contrast to River, Early is just highly perceptive. He can tell that Book is not a shepherd, for instance, but he doesn't have anything on River's psychic ability.
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== Firefly is in the ''[[Warhammer
Hear me through on this. There are several possibilities.
#A) Firefly is part of the age of technology or just before it, and the entire Firefly universe is just a small isolated area of space.
#B) Firefly is part of the age of strife. Many areas of the galaxy where covered by warp storms, which would make traveling to and from the Firefly universe impossible. They would also probably forget about Earth, setting up the whole "earth-that-was" myth.
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== The characters all speak perfect Mandarin, it just doesn't sound right to us because future!Mandarin is pronounced differently than present!Mandarin. ==
But for some unexplained reason, English pronunciation hasn't changed as drastically.
** It's [[Translation Convention]]. Everyone's shown speaking ''our'' English because they understand each other.
*** Or, because it's ''not the native language'' of the main characters. They speak it poorly because they just plain speak it poorly.
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Miranda was one of the outermost planets in the system and had a dense ion cloud around it, cutting it off from communication with the 'Verse. Despite being an outer planet, its architecture, population, and beautiful terraforming give it equal standing with any Core planet. That place was ''well-funded''. Miranda will give you a good life, but you have to be willing to be cut off from the verse and a total guinea pig.
Going off of the above, the Pax experiment was only the last in a series of long-running experiments on the population of Miranda, of which another experiment was to find and enhance psychic potential in a vast population. The way that the Scientist in the Apocalyptic Log speaks, it sounds like the residents of Miranda were being monitored and recorded at all times, even at their most private ("they stopped breeding.") The attempt to enhance psychic abilities is what allowed tenth of one percent of the population to have enough psychometry/telepathy to be driven insane.
* Final note: the name of the planet could tie into this. "Miranda" means basically "she is to be admired, marveled, wondered at." Obviously the Alliance expected Miranda to be the shining example of all the goodness that the Alliance can bestow.
* Somewhat to very likely, though I would speculate the level of monitoring is about consistent with what you might normally have already on the Core Worlds. Well, except in the black out zones. In any case, they didn't screen their test subjects very well, considering Kaylee's comments about them distributing brochures to encourage people to come to Miranda for work, though that doesn't preclude the possibility they were just trying to recruit a large unwitting test population. The other possible explanation is that the Pax was a large scale leak from an R&D facility. I also note that Miranda is not the same world as Mr. Universe's Moon. That's why they had to TRAVEL there (with Reavers chasing them).
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== Jubal Early wasn't working for the Alliance ==
For whom then? Why, for the people who helped Simon get River out of the Academy in the first place. They probably planned to get rid of him one way or the other to get their hands on a mind reading supersoldier with head filled to the brim with high-level Alliance secrets. But they underestimated Simon rather badly and he managed to get off their radar. Now, if the beginning of BDM is any indication the Resistance probably doesn't like to get directly involved in dirty work - otherwise why would they allow an inexperienced youngster to infiltrate the Academy? - so it would make sense to hire someone like Early, who is both really good at his job and probably cannot be easily connected to his employers if he fails.
* Jubal Early wasn't a lion? Well, no, he doesn't think he is any way... Seriously though, he ''isn't'' Alliance, he's a bounty hunter. He was after River because bringing her in to the authorities would get him paid. Simple.
** Like it did those Feds in "Ariel"? Besides, between the Feds, the Blue Hands and The Operatives one would think that Alliance has little need to spend extra money on getting their dirty job done...
** Ehm, Well. Technically the Blue Hands aren't Alliance either. According to Those Left behind, they're "Independent Contractors," though my guess is they're actually Blue Sun, trying to bring River back for further experimentation. Blue Sun has an interest in protecting it's own secrets, and have an agreement with some of the Alliance higher-ups, which is why the Alliance is okay with them liquifying their own Federal Marshals if they've learned too much. When the Blue Hands fail and the Alliance suddenly realizes there's a potential for other more serious leaks, they first collectively shit a brick, THEN send out the operative.
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== River and Simon were both genetic experiments. ==
Simon and River's parents were given generous funds by the Alliance to have their children genetically enhanced to become smarter. Simon was a failed attempt as, while he was "gifted", he was not the super-genius they were attempting to create. River was a successful result, and therefore her attending the ''Academy'' was not really a choice but rather a stipulation as part of the agreement with the Alliance. This explains why her parents were apparently [[The Unfavorite|distant from her]] in flashbacks to their childhood as their parents didn't want to get attached to the daughter they knew would be taken from them.
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== Zoe is pregnant. ==
Because she has to be. I'm not necessarily implying [[Dead Guy, Junior]], but that works too.
* Hinted at in "Heart of Gold" when she mentions wanting to start a family.
* Confirmed by "Float Out", thank God!
** FUCK YEAH!!
== [[Firefly]] is the new [[Star Trek: The
Think about it. Both of them are sci-fi shows that were [[Too Good to Last]]. A letter-writing campaign by the small cult-following ensued, but ultimately failed. However, shortly afterwards, the popularity started to grow, as people were given new opportunities to watch it. Eventully, a movie was made, but was in one way or another unsuccessful. Does this sound familiar? It should. Doubly so.
* So hopefully, a decade or so down the line, someone does an equally good remake of the original series?
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One of the staples of the Great Old Ones is that they want to free mankind of "sin," by erasing the idea that anything could be sinful. The reavers have been freed from sin in they have no concept of right and wrong, just the desire to kill, rape and cannibalize (as well as make some stylish clothes). This was as a result of the Alliance trying to literally create a world without sin with the Pax.
"If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And, if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order."
―Zoé Alleyne Washburne
"I'm going to show you a world without sin."
―Malcolm Reynolds
"That cult would never die until the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild, and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."
- H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu", (1926)
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== Everything after episode 8, "Out of Gas", is Mal's [[Dying Dream]]. ==
The setup is just too delicious for that kind of interpretation. It's even lampshaded at the end of the episode!
{{quote|'''Mal:''' "You're all going to be here when I wake up?" }}
* "An Occurrence on the Firefly Bridge?"
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== ''[[The Giver]]'' takes place in the Firefly Universe. ==
This particular planet was an Alliance experiment in progress - constantly monitored with a drugged populace, and no contact with the outside world, much like Miranda. Only this time, with more careful application of the drugs, and genetic engineering, things go much more smoothly. Being a Reader like River was deliberately tied to having pale eyes, so the Giver and Jonas (and Gabe) are Readers who have taken their telepathy to a highly specialized, but powerful level.
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The rest of the series is either the afterlife or some sort of purgatory-equivalent; and Mal seems like the kind of guy who's "personal heaven" would simply be continuing his wild adventures with in the company of his crew. "Out of Gas" was written in a way that could double as a beautiful and moving death scene, as well.
* Supplementing this theory, it is also possible that [[Kill'Em All|everyone died]] (what with the shuttles lacking the range to reach any place, and undoubtedly not very well-supplied), and then ALL moved on to a purgatory-equivalent. When they die in this "Purgatory", they are actually moving on to the main afterlife.
** This would mean [[Token Good Teammate|Book]] and [[Non-Action Guy|Wash]] were the first to move on from purgatory to heaven...makes some sense. Although, Taking teh comics into account, Book used to be an Operative, which really ought to mean he's the most "sinniest" guy on the ship.
* Also supplementing this theory is the fact that Mal ''did not actually get to the button''! Sure, Zoe claimed to have woken up and decided to turn her shuttle around, but still.
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== River's been psychic since the flashback in "Safe" ==
It's how she learns so fast. Also:
"So how'd the Independents cut us off?"
"They were using dinosaurs."
She can see the future. Because who do we know that makes the only other reference to dinosaurs?
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== Firefly is a prequel series to [[Blake's
At some point in the future, the Alliance develops a working version of the Pax, which they put in everyone's food. They recolonise Earth-that-was and invent FTL engines.
* Or...
== The events of [[Blake's
The last series of ''Blake's 7' introduced Pylene-50, which worked in very similar fashion to the Pax only without the side effects, and the domed cities on Earth and the restrictions on outside movement could quite easily have started out as a response to some kind of environmental catastrophe. It would be entirely typical of the Terran Federation to keep a [[Lost Colony]] too backwards and resource-poor to be worth annexing embargoed as a proving ground for their latest [[Government Drug Enforcement|mood-stabilising drugs]] or other instruments of totalitarian unpleasantness. Whether the Alliance government is an [[Unwitting Pawn]] or willing accomplice is anyone's guess.
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== The Alliance is run by [[Assassin's Creed|the Templars]], River and Simon are Assassins, and the Academy was using Animus technology. ==
The Alliance's efforts at controlling people's thoughts are almost perfectly in line with the Templar's goals. The Academy's experiments on producing psychic assassins was intended to root out subversive elemnts and police thoughts, particularly among those resistant to the Templars' attempts to control minds. The Academy itself was using Animus technology on River to help induce the bleeding effect. Her [[Psychic Powers]] are a side effect of the bleeding effect, and are a result of enhanced Eagle Vision. Her insanity is a direct result of the bleeding effect, coupled with her enhanced psychic abilities. Her superhuman combat abilities are due to a combination of the bleeding effect giving her the skills of her anscestors and her natural abilities as an Assassin. This is part of the reason why the Alliance wants Simon as well, because he can potentially do the same things as River.
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== [[Doctor Who|Starship UK]] was one of the Arks. ==
* The premise of [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
* This provides a neat explanation for why so many regional accents still exist in ''Firefly'''s future. Starship UK, the British Ark we see in ''The Beast Below'', seems to be divided up into sections that approximate the country's counties; it's possible that smaller regional divisons also exist, with people generally continuing to live in the district of the Ark that corresponds to their ancestors' hometown. If this local insularity got specific enough, it's possible that there was an East London division whose inhabitants became the ancestors of Badger and the other Dyton colonists.
** If the East London accent really is unique to Dyton, then ''all'' of the people who still had that accent when Starship UK reached the new system would have to have immigrated there at around the same time once the colony became habitable; they would more than likely have been among the first to do so. Given that [[Word of Dante|some]] [[Fanon|sources]] refer to Dyton as a penal colony, this emigration might not have been willing—but then the Alliance isn’t exactly known for its ethical treatment of its citizens.
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Which explains why there's all the Chinese artifacts in Firefly; because that's all they could get their hands on.
* Seems more likely that China was just the dominant culture at the time of the diaspora. It certainly looks like a culture that's fundamentally American but with lots of absorbed Chinese influences and [[Gratuitous Chinese]] slang.
* Jossed. It's explicitly said that the alliance was formed from a merger of America and China. yea I know its rediculous. plus, while theres alot of chinese influence that you notice, its because the more American things you used too. Overall it seems like a decent blend of both, with somepeople still leaning one way or another and English as the main language and chinese a strong second.
* Ridiculous? You ARE abreast of global politics lately? One wants to rule the world (and established economic dominance to do so), one established and maintains a would-be world-wide parliament, both want to wipe each other out while maintaining a cool business-like relationship, and China secretly kinda wants to [[Unusual Euphemism|colonize]] the United States. Sounds like [[UST]] to me.
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It's not just the soldiers' uniforms that is a giveaway - it's the experiments in psychic phenomena, and the militarized government. Also, places like "Port Joe Smith" in the movie forshadow [[Cult Colony|places like]] the one featured in the episode "Safe".
Once Earth fell - mostly likely destroyed through all-out war with the bugs - the last of humanity moved out into space and found new solar systems to colonize.
China was the country least effected in the last days of the war, so their culture became dominant in the new setting.
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== [[Firefly]] began as an [[Alternate Universe]] all-human fanfic of [[Star Wars]] ==
Mal is Han Solo, Inara is Princess Leia, Shepherd Book is Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jayne and Zoe are two-sides of Chewbacca, River is a [[Deconstruction]] of Mara Jade, and Niska is Jabba the Hutt. Jubal Early, of course, is Boba Fett.
* Seconded. Simon, like Luke, starts as the impetuous and idealistic foil to a older, cynical smuggler. Parliament is the Galactic Senate and the Maidenhead is the cantina. At the start of the space battle in Serenity, This Troper almost expected the Operative to say "It's a trap!"
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Eventually, the parents of these children are informed that they'll never see their children again, but they'll be benefiting the Alliance and all of mankind. To seal that silence, the families are also lavishly paid off. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that they also threaten to completely ruin anyone who doesn't prove so cooperative.
That's why Gabriel and Regan Tam ignore every piece of evidence Simon presents to them: they have a very cosy lifestyle and aren't about to rock the boat by making a fuss. It's also why they keep telling Simon to forget about River and think about his future, because that's exactly what they've done.
== Inara is of Turkish and Italian or Iberian descent. ==
Serra is a surname of Italian or Iberian origin and Inara was the Hittite goddess of animals and hunting.
== Inara is a timelord ==
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Time Lords were taking human children and trying to make them into Time Lords, in a secluded corner of the universe, far away from Earth, and lead the colonists to believe that it was destroyed, for some reason. Makes as much sense as anything they do.
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[[Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Live Action TV]]
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