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I was gonna get me an ear, too!
-Jayne Cobb

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I was gonna get me an ear, too!
-Jayne Cobb

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Mal would never know it, but the guy he shot was the pilot of the ship that killed Book and the rest of Haven.

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Originally posted by OLDGUY:
there was no time for taking prisoners
there was no value in the leftover dumb soldier who likely was just following orders...

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Originally posted by OLDGUY:
I don't know how much of this mindset Joss understands or has been exposed to, but I felt they captured it very well with his sudden and swift shooting decision.

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:
As for your question, I can say without a doubt I would have done the same as Mal.

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Who, of us fans, would take a ride on Serenity with Mal? This is not hypothetical. Be truthful with yourself.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Mal is pretty much a raging human mess who occasionally approaches normalcy

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Oh, Mal can be fun...
"How much did I have to drink last night?"

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Originally posted by MUTT999:
In both the movie and Shepherd's Tale, Book is killed by the ship. What's interesting is that in the novelization, the Operative himself kills Book. Comes at him from behind, right after Book shoots the ship down, and does that paralyzing hand trick he pulls on Mal. So Book can only stand there while the Operative gives the order to shoot. Book is riddled by bullets and then falls to the ground.

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Bernabe fought in a brutal war. Throughout, even though he knew plenty who got wounded, and plenty more who died, he never got hurt his own self. Mal once called him a good luck charm, but Bernabe just figured he was good at ducking, was all.

So until this moment, he'd never felt a bullet rip through his flesh.

As he fell to the ground, his bizarre thought was, hotter than I figured . . .

The bullet had gone through his back and out through his belly, and was 'round about what having a hot metal pipe shoved through your stomach probably felt like, though that, too, had never happened to Bernabe. To make up for it, he supposed, he couldn't feel a damn thing in his legs.

He did manage to roll over onto his back, though, and so he saw the man who shot him. It was some Alliance man wearing some kind of armor and carrying a pistol. He was now aiming it at Bernabe's head.

Guess I'll be joinin' you and the kids soon, Mildred.

Then the Alliance man fell down. Only then did Bernabe see Shepherd Book standing behind him with a mining tool he'd hit the Alliance man on the back of the head with.

Book then knelt down beside Bernabe. "Lie still, son—it's pretty bad, but we'll get you to a doctor soon-like."

"Shepherds ain't—supposed to lie." Bernabe could taste the blood in his mouth as he spoke.

A shot buzzed by—Bernabe felt it more than heard it. Moving remarkable fast, Book rolled over to Alliance man he'd thumped, grabbed the same gun Bernabe had been shot with, and shot another Alliance man.

"Shepherds ain't—supposed to be—shootin' people neither." Bernabe knew that folks what came Haven had pasts they didn't talk about—he knew mainly on account of he was one—but a preacher who was a crack shot went beyond what he was expecting.

Without another word, Book ran over to the cannon. Gently removing Doane's body and laying it on ground all respectful-like, he then leapt into the firing chair and whirled it on the Alliance ship just as it finished raining down fire on the shepherd's own church and adjoining garden.

Though Bernabe didn't rightly recognize the specific class of ship, he was familiar with the design type behind it. Was fair similar to the Striker-class that the Alliance favored during the war. This was souped up beyond all good sense, but Bernabe figured the engine core was in the same place.

He knew this mainly because Book's first and only shot went right to the spot on the undercarriage where Bernabe reckoned the core was.

Ship blew up a second later, crashing to the ground not too far from the cannon.

Shepherds ain't supposed to shoot down no ships. Bernabe was unable to make his mouth work no more. though, so was he stuck with just thinking it.

Which also meant Bernabe couldn't warn Book about the man who was coming up behind him. The man, who wore funny glasses, struck Book in the back. Book didn't move after that.

"Impressive. I must confess, while I expected some minor damage, I hadn't expected this." Then the man's eyes widened. "Ah, Derrial. Given what I've read about you, this was the last place I expected to see you. And the last mode of dress, for that matter. Oh, you don't know me, so you don't need to widen your eyes like that. But I know all about you, which I daresay is more than can be said for the good people who have just died all around you. Or, for that matter, your former mates on Serenity." The man with the glasses sighed. "Under other circumstances, I might consider using the blade on you, but that is a thing of honor— and a man of the cloth shooting down a fully staffed vessel hardly qualifies as honorable. It barely qualifies as human." The man shook his head. "If only Captain Reynolds could see you now."

Then the man turned and walked away, signaling to somebody. Bernabe couldn't see who did the shooting, but he heard the shots—round about a dozen, all plowing into Shepherd Book who, thanks to whatever the man had done to his back, had to just be standing there and taking it.

He thought he saw Book fall to the ground, but it was hard to tell, as his vision was getting a mite fuzzy. What distressed Bernabe most was the not knowing. Alliance never bothered Haven none—that was why it was such a haven. And Bernabe'd never seen the man with the glasses before in his life. That man knew the shepherd, true, but that didn't go toward explaining anything.

Bernabe died on the dirt of his adopted home, never knowing why.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
Thing is I see a soft side to Mal, why else would he let Simon get away with that sucker punch when they got back from the Reaver chase? Way I see it, a hard man'd slap a beatdown on a fella for less.

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Under other circumstances, I might consider using the blade on you, but that is a thing of honor— and a man of the cloth shooting down a fully staffed vessel hardly qualifies as honorable. It barely qualifies as human." The man shook his head. "If only Captain Reynolds could see you now."

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Originally posted by second:
Who, of us fans, would take a ride on Serenity with Mal? This is not hypothetical. Be truthful with yourself. Riding with Mal is like riding a class EF5 tornado into heaven. All of us would get off that boat at the first stop when we find out who the Captain really is. And sure as hell none of can be Mal. We could never make the decisions that Mal makes because we would not be there with him in those awful situations.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

Jong, we must respectively agree to disagree here.

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Authoritarian judgements have no place where Authority fails to act within the confines of legality & moral legitimacy.

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The Operatives' strike on Haven was illegal AND immoral,

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Law of the jungle, baby.

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Who judges the authority? Anarchists? Bank robbers? Model makers?

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

What gets set into play must be played upon; I don't make the rules.

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Originally posted by second:
We are not at tavern, drinking ourselves into a coma, so I call bullshit on "I would have done . . ."

Who, of us fans, would take a ride on Serenity with Mal? This is not hypothetical. Be truthful with yourself. Riding with Mal is like riding a class EF5 tornado into heaven. All of us would get off that boat at the first stop when we find out who the Captain really is. And sure as hell none of can be Mal. We could never make the decisions that Mal makes because we would not be there with him in those awful situations.

Mal would have a really hard decision to make if anybody had survived in Haven. Does Mal abandon survivors? Take them with him? Leave Doctor Tam behind to take care of them?

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
Try for a moment to wrap your mind around just how *MUCH* I hate the bastards of this world who set us at each others throats to fight over scraps while they live the high life off our labors, and then tell me I wouldn't get along pretty well with Malcolm Reynolds.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

Not saying he's always hard. Not even saying he doesn't have his admirable qualities or his friendly side. Saying he's a mess. Sometimes with anger issues.

It's like, this kid you know was bright and cheerful and idealistic, and he signs up for the army and gets deployed in Iraq. When he comes back, turns out the family farm got taken by the banks, his parents died, and who even knows where his highschool sweetheart went.

He's got nothing, but somehow he scrapes together the money to buy a home and even gets some roommates and renters moved in who seem like nice people except for that one guy who seems like kind of a thug. He seems like he's doing okay, he can still crack a joke, even though he can also be grumpy and cynical and impatient and he doesn't really take to new people anymore and he's been stockpiling guns for some reason.

Then you find out that he and his roommates have started smuggling drugs from Canada and tequila and canned food from Mexico and sometimes they hold up banks and steal from gated communities and other zany schemes. They get into shoot outs a lot and whenever things go wrong, and it always does, they gets away by the skin of their teeth by him coming up with some randomly improvized plan. Despite all this, they're always poor, and they rarely can afford to eat better than ramen noodles most nights. His girlfriend is a nice lady, pretty classy, who's also a prostitute.

Taken altogether, is this someone who makes you think, wow, they've really got it together, they have control of their life and they know where it's going?

He's a mess. Yeah, he's got reasons he's like that, yeah he's still a likeable guy, but he's a mess.

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You put that all into some perspective pretty nicely, 'cept the world today ain't as effed as Mals' Verse, I think. It's still Earth that is.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

Hehe. I don't think second realizes who he's talking to.

omigosh this's gonna be FUN.

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He hasn't been in RWED as much, no...

If there was a site that would allow points and wagering on a philosophical debates, my moneys on you Byte

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Nuremberg established just following orders isn't a valid defense.

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Many countries agree that it is lawful for a citizen to repel violence with violence to protect his or her own or another's life and limb, or to prevent sexual assault. However, there is less agreement on the extent to which it is justifiable to kill the attacker, as opposed to disarm or disable. The degree of response to the degree of threat may be tested. If the level of force used in defense matches the force threatened and the "winner" of the conflict first retreated or showed a clear intention not to fight (assuming this was possible in the time available), the killer may be exculpated.

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