So, I’m kind of wondering why the Alliance fought the Independents. They don’t seem to want to rule or colonize the outer planets, since most of them seem to be self-ruled fiefdoms.
These are the only potential explanations I have:
(a) the Alliance doesn’t actually give a crap about the outer planets, they just didn’t want them to be unified and organized, which could pose a potential threat to them, so they smashed them.
(b) the Alliance wants to control interplanetary trade, for financial reasons or security reasons, but otherwise, they don’t give a crap about the outer planets.
Power, control, subjects, a piece of the action, mindless followers, better weapons, funny hats, secure borders, etc… You know, like any government today.
But they don’t seem to have done any of these things. They seem to have left the outer planets to operate as independent fiefdoms. So, where are they getting power or control or mindless followers or better weapons or funny hats?
Secure borders, though, seems to fall under my explanation (a), so I’ll give you that.
But it seems to me they kind of let them leave. They don’t seem to have any presence on the prostitute planet or the “lady who once shot Mal” planet or the “religious nuts who kidnap the doctor” planet.
They just don’t have enough power yet. Which is why they did the experiment that backfired* and the River (and others) training stuff.
*spoiler below from the movie which ended up making the Reavers, according to the movie
as usual, ymmv, which is fine. Since the series didn’t last long enough, lots of ideas were never fleshed out adequately. imho, of course. Anyone with a writer’s guide might be able to shed real light on the Qs.
I don’t think we need to spoiler anything here. YMMV, of course.
But, here’s the thing about Miranda. It’s way out in the boonies, in the outer planets. If they didn’t have the ability to project power to the outer planets, it’s pretty dumb of them to try and build a colony that far out. I think the existence of Miranda indicates that they could project power into the outer planets if they wanted to, but for some reason they haven’t chosen to do it.
Ooh, here’s a thought. Maybe as part of the treaty that ended the war, the Alliance agreed to give autonomy to various outer planets? But they never gave any indication of that in the show, so I’m just making stuff up trying to rationalize it.
Wasn’t sure if you had seen the movie. Part of Miranda’s being remote was the need to keep it relatively secret. Like if the US military did some experiment in Antarctica.
Again, without substantially more to go one from actually aired eps, most of my ideas are slightly more than a guess.
But they didn’t keep it secret. In the movie, they say the Alliance put out a call for settlers on Miranda. After everything went haywire is when they covered it up.
It’s worth noting the only exposition on the Alliances motives comes from the people who either fought them or are avoiding them.
The show is a space western, so the Alliance is the Union, the Brown Coats the Confederacy and the outer planets just Wild West homesteaders. They just pulled out all that unsightly stuff about slavery.
The Firefly solar system was colonized by one big group of people a few generations before the show takes place, right? So the various colonies probably didn’t start out as completely independent, they probably had some sort of loose central governing association between them. As time went on the Alliance wanted to strengthen that organization, the Browncoats wanted full independence. That’s my take on it, anyways.
But, again, we come back to the point that the Alliance doesn’t actually seem to be doing anything to strengthen the organization, since they seem to let the outer planets operate as independent fiefdoms.
This is my problem with this theory and most of the theories being offered in this thread. The Alliance doesn’t actually seem to give a crap about actually controlling a number of the outer planets.
I don’t understand this comment. New York is a state (or a if we’re talking about NYC, a city) and DC is a Federal district. Why would they have control over Montana?
The US government, though, exercises a lot of control over Montana. So, what exactly are you trying to argue here?
Keep in mind, we see Mal and company mostly in the underpopulated boonies, Planet Tombstone, Planet Chimney Rock, Planet Wichita, except when he occasionally has to go back to visit the heart of the [del]Union[/del]Alliance and we see him on Planet Philadelphia or Planet Washington. But there might be other planets that led the rebellion and are under fuller Alliance control: Planet Atlanta, Planet Richmond. Mal would have had no reason to visit those places or talk about them. They might even be under direct military control.
On the other hand, maybe Space Abraham Lincoln was succeeded by Space Andrew Johnson, who was even more radical about ending Space Reconstruction in the 'Verse than Earth Andrew Johnson was.
Alliance control doesn’t look like the rich inner planets controlling the undeveloped outer planets any more than the USA today looks like NY and Mass. controlling rural western districts. That’s what I’m saying.
Do you think the Alliance should have fancypants boots on the ground in every muddy settlement?