A kinder, gentler Alliance by SergeantX

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

A kinder, gentler Alliance

POSTED BY: SERGEANTX
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2003 18:15
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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 2:53 PM

Has anyone else seen hints that the Alliance may one day turn out to NOT be the big bad evil empire they've been cast as early in the series? It's true that, as a policy, they don't seem to care a great deal about the well-being of the frontier planets, but we've seen several examples of Alliance officers who were clearly not evil fascists. The Alliance commanders in 'Serenity' and 'Bushwhacked' didn't seem particularly viscious and the Duran Hamer character from 'Trash' might not be the treacherous villian that Saffron made him out to be. Obviously there are some very bad people operating under that Alliance flag as well, like the Blue Hands group, or the renegade officers in 'The Message', but I'm thinking the Alliance will eventually come to be seen as more of a neutral authority.

So far I think that we've seen the Alliance from Mal's point of view. They were the enemy who defeated him and left him with nothing. I wonder if Mal's story will follow the story of so many people from the defeated South who had to learn to see the Union as something they were part of and not a hated adversary. I think this could actually turn out to be a more interesting storyline than a hopeless vendetta.
SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 6:57 AM

SUCCATASH

You could be right, Sarge.

But Joss gave us a reason to hate the Alliance in "The Train Job" when they refused to help recover the stolen medicine. Also, in "Safe," they refused to help Book until he proved he was more than just a common folk.

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 3:53 PM

SERGEANTX

Absolutely. Lots of reasons to hate them. I'm just saying I see the seeds of dramatic tension and a more complicated view of the situation in the future.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 6:15 PM

AGREY

Here is my question: If they were kinder and gentler, would that not mean that they hunted down people like the Marshal in "The Message", actively blocked and broke up covert operations like the Blue Hands group, and most of all, DID NOT perform expirments on the best and brightest children they could find-especially of a prestigous, influential family like the Tams? Well?
A kinder, gentler Alliance wouldn't support slave ops-sanction them, actually-have droves of officials that abused power for money or personal amibition, and especially not give a rat's ass about the people they are supposed to be helping.
No, all the signs point to the Alliance being a totalitarian government that is run by corrupt, power-hungry, money-sucking immoral swine.
No wonder the Independence Movement sprung up-but apparently too late...and apparently the Indy High Command had its collective head up its fourth point of contact, as witnessed by the opening of "Serenity:Part One"...after all, it takes complete idiots-spineless idiots, nonetheless-to NOT send in air support when your written off and expendable blocking force just delivered that many Alliance troops to you on a silver platter...which suggests that the Movers and Shakers in the Independence Movement cared more about their own hides...and hence, probably were really fighting for economic reasons, using the call for independence from the Corrupt Alliance, Those Intergalatic World Rapers simply to get a military force and recruits.
(On a slight side subject, from the comments between Mal and Zoe throughout the series, it appears as though the Independence had the better troops in most cases-presumably because they were recruiting frontier folk, who were no strangers to violence and most of whom probably already had a basic grasp of soldiering skills-raider defense, don't ya know-as opposed to the Alliance, whose main stategy appears to have been mass wave assaults and Flood the Battlefield with Troops, which makes sense, since the Alliance, with much more heavily populated Core Planets, could simply draft the poor, unemployed, and homeless-all of whom probably came willingly once it was explained Military Service came with decent food on regular intervals, clothing, and pay, no matter how little-and officered the military with rich boys whose families purchased them commissions. Hence, the Alliance won partly because of sheer numbers, and, if the Battle of Serenity Valley is any sort of an example, because the Indy leadership didn't have any balls or backbones among the whole lot of them...)
Just a little food for thought.

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