And dead soma-tose people. >_>

But yeah, clearly Miranda, the brave new world, the "better world" is not so much. I think it's a great literary reference. :)

"such people in it" Between the operative and the reavers I can't take the delicious irony. This has made my day.

Nice post.
I thought of the Miranda Rights too, having just done a two-day mock trial. So yeah, I think it made it extra shiny with that creep effect. Nice links, piratenews.
Shakespeare was what I thought they were supposed to refer to though.
But BNW is much more plausible in overt ways.

I am going to read Brave New World now...all I know about is soma...the pax, anyone?...let's see how it compares to 1984.

Aliasse: I wouldn't put it past the Alliance, or at least the sinister elements hiding under all the bumbling bureaucracy.

Brave New World was also an interesting commentary on the dangers of a pacified population raised on the principles of unchecked consumerism and corporate worship. The ultimate conclusion of the novel is that in such a society, the soul of humanity is lost.

But Alliance don't seem to have any problem with enslaved terraform crews, either.

Pirate News: It could be the reference you're making to Miranda rights, too, someone guilty of murder despite the confession being obscured.

There's another planet named after a character from the Tempest as well... Ariel, who was a sprite in the service of Prospero, who created a storm to shipwreck some sailors and bring them to Miranda.

This may not bode well for the planet Ariel.

Guess I learn something every day, whether I want to or not:

The phrase "brave new world" comes from Miranda's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"
It may also refer to:

In literature:

Huxley's use of it for a dystopian novel gave the term an ironic meaning not intended by Shakespeare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World_(disambiguation)

Shakespeare was apparently not Shakespeare, but a collection or royalty using that pen name, since writing "was so disreputable" and province of the unwashed masses.

I read Brave New World a really really long time ago, when I was a teenager. Can't remember much except that people had a designation of their intelligence/worth which determined what their life would be. (My sister had a very savage tongue and used to call people 'epsilon-semi-morons'. I work with one or two of those.) I'm giving a lot of thought to how to develop my series, and as I've said elsewhere, I'm imagining that Miranda was conceived as the administrative hub of a chain of far-Rim-located slave worlds. Fits with Brave New World?

Miranda Rights: You have the right to have everything you say used agaisnt you in a court of law.

Miranda was a confessed murderer.

Who got a new trial, confession suppressed.

He was convicted by the 2nd jury.

A little creepy. That's what I thought of during Serenity.

Which made it extra creepy.

Also, might be an important connection between the name Miranda, the ironic use of Miranda's famous quote, and the novel "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.

Might be some behind the scenes commentary about the workings of the Alliance or the people responsible for the test. Or maybe just their mindset? The sleep-training (also from Brave New World) that River experienced, under which she seemed to pull Miranda from Parliament Inspectors, and later pulled the planet from her own subconscious? Or a reference to the dangers of corporate globalism?