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I've asked myself the same question. My thoughts were:
1) they were told some "story" about what the alliance was doing (though not the real story) and were keeping it from Simon
2) they knew the truth, i.e. they knew WHY the blue hands were messing with her brain and that reason seemed good enough for them to allow it (again, they probably didn't know they were opening up her brain over and over, they got the sugar coated version)but didn't want Simon to know because they knew he'd get upset.
3) what Steve said, they were too concerned about appearances and social standing to take Simon seriously. (I seriously hope not. Mr. Tam seemed so nice in the first flashback when they were kids.)

We have such a small piece of the puzzle that it's hard to give the story all it's flesh. We dont know, Mr. Tam could have been secretly trying to rescue his daughter through connections he had. They could have just been idiots and refused to see the signs. We just don't know enough to judge them, I guess. Drives you crazy, doesn't it?
I haven't seen Serenity, and I DO NOT WANT any spoilers, but I'm really hoping we learn a bit more about all this. I don't think the dad was serious when he told Simon to never come back. Parents say that out of anger and rarely mean it.

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Originally posted by CallMeSerenity:
They could have just been idiots....

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Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
But an even bigger question for me was: how the hell did crickets get to that backwater planet?? They certainly didn't bring 'em on purposes, cuz they don't provide much in the way of protein. And, sure, I imagine a few could have stowed away as bitty little bugs tend to do, but that many, enough to make that much cricket noise? Or... were River and I just hearing things?

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Originally posted by reginaroadie:
I remember that quote Joss made about him believing that we're the only sentient beings in the universe now and 500 years from now. Now, I'll follow Joss wherever. But to me, to not have your mind open to the possibility that there might be another civilization out there of beings similar to us is incredibly closed minded, even from him.

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Originally posted by TheRealMe:
Alliance?

The Tams sent their daughter to an academy, a challenging one, so that she could learn.

Was there any reason to connect this academy to an Alliance project? Okay, WE know what went on there, but...



The Real Me, First Officer of the Sereni-Tree

(The Real Me cannot currently receive messages from this site; he is not ignoring you. But he CAN receive e-mail at realme@pcibroadband.net.)

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Originally posted by reginaroadie:
You know, that whole bit about crickets and stuff like that seems to be a big scientific inconsistency to me. I know that FIREFLY has a strict "no aliens" policy. And for the most part, I'm OK with it. But I think it's just stupid to think that we move from one galaxy to the next, find planets and systems that are already developed and have their own ecosystems (I'm sure not all colonized planets were terra-formed), and out of all those planets, they couldn't even find new species of insects or single cell bacteria, let alone quadrapeds or something similar.

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So it seems really odd and glaring, from a biologistic point of view that in 500 years of space travel and exploring the galaxy, that if we were to discover planets that already have ecosystems of their own, that we wouldn't have catalogued a couple thousand brand new species of plants, insects, bacteria, amphibians, fish, reptiles, mammals, you name it.

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I remember that quote Joss made about him believing that we're the only sentient beings in the universe now and 500 years from now. Now, I'll follow Joss wherever. But to me, to not have your mind open to the possibility that there might be another civilization out there of beings similar to us is incredibly closed minded, even from him.

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That we still havn't made contact with Klingons or Vulcans or anything similar to that, I can buy. But that we hadn't even discovered new forms of single celled organisms? Yeah fucking right.

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Originally posted by SergeantX:
The Tam's struck a deal with the Blue Hands, before the kids were even born. They signed up to have their kids genetically altered. In exchange for money, social standing, and a genetically superior son, they'd turn over their second born for whatever nefarious plans Blue Sun was working on. Thus the emotional detachment shown toward River in the first flashback, and the hasty dismissal of Simon's concerns later on.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

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Originally posted by PurpleYin:
hi all, just got here- first post and all

just wanted to reply to reginaroadies post-

I understand your point about alternate adaptive strategies, but FireFly can’t be set in another galaxy- without faster than light travel (and as far as I can tell they’re still using fusion drives) it would take thousands of years to span the void of the galaxies.

Personally, I think that it must be a star-cluster (I think Mr. Whedon wants it to be in one system, but really, there are just too many planets) and terraforming ships were sent ahead from earth- equipped with genetically modified bacteria, protozoans, fungi, and a bunch of nanobots, and turned the planets from whatever they were to what a trekkie would call an M-class planet, that is one that can support life. I think the inner planets were made first, so are most like Earth, and the outer ones are still being finished, so they’re all desert-like, there are probably still seas of water being pumped up to the surface of the planets, or trans-located from planets with a surplus of water.

I think the terraforming ships were sent first because they could feasibly be unmanned, allowing them to get there faster, because there’d be a higher tolerance of inertia.
The generation ships carrying colonists and livestock and databanks with literature, science, culture, media then left the earth, accelerating slower then the terraforming ships, but still travelling at relativistic speeds. The generation ships probably held the living crew compliment in stasis, but to the ships chronometers, probably a couple of hundred years past, but to the terraformed systems, thousands of years passed (because of the time-dilation caused by the ship travelling at relativistic speeds). The ships landed, and off-loaded the living compliment, were disassembled and used to build the first cities in the central planets.

Ok ok, what im getting at is- I think all the organisms there came from here- although some may be genetically modified to fare better away from Earth. The crickets would indeed be important to the ecosystem, since they’re a staple for insectivores.

Umm…yeah… sorry about such a long post..heh...

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Originally posted by BruisersMom:
... this script may have been changed ...

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Originally posted by BruisersMom:
Is the wikki script an actual script that Joss's people wrote for "Safe?" I was reading about wikki from the Firefly Wikki page and it sounds like anyone can change the content of the stuff on the site. It's that way so that people can collaborate on stuff in an online environment. If that's true, this script may have been changed by people having nothing to do with the writing department at Firefly. It might not have even originated with the writers of Firefly.

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