Pro-Alliance by howdyrockerbaby1

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Pro-Alliance

POSTED BY: HOWDYROCKERBABY1
UPDATED: Monday, April 26, 2004 17:17
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Sunday, April 25, 2004 11:04 AM

Okay, so this is something that i have been rolling around in my mind for the last couple of days.

I just cannot why people would be Pro-Alliance

The only thing i could think of would be that it benefits those core planets where people are already wealthy. We've seen that it doesn't benefit any outer planets, so it doesn't seem to make sense to me that those drunks in the Bar that Mal ends up fighting

on U-day would be pro-Alliance. Does anybody have any light they'd like to shed on this topic?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Here's to Jayne, the box dropping man-ape-gone-wrong-thing"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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Sunday, April 25, 2004 11:47 AM

GUNHAND

Just my 2 cents here but here's how I see it.

Firstly, it was a civil war, lots of people in times like that side with the government because, well, it's the government. "Going up against the Man" doesn't seem like such a sweet proposition when you realise the Man can, and is very willing to stomp a mudhole into anyone who upsets the status quo.

Plus when we see the more advanced planets, Persephone and Ariel, there are video screens everywhere. The Alliance would definately have been buying or commandeering lots of air time to broadcast propoganda.

As for Mr. Unification Day, with the casualty figures for just Serenity Valley would indicate (half a million dead, from the cut scene) and running at even a Verdun or Somme type of attrition rate there were a hell of a lot of soldiers on each side. There'd have to be for that level of casualities, and that was one battle. Sure a major one and the one that lost the Independants the war but even Gettysburg and Shiloh didn't see entire armies wiped out on a biblical, or even midieval scale. There'd be lots and lots of veterans around, give them the 'verse equivelant to 40 acres and a mule and that would explain why there are so many pro-Alliance people out in the frontier areas as well.

Inara's interaction with Mal when she says,"I supported Unification" and he comes back with,"Yeah I imagine a lot of whores did" in Out of Gas could be more than a typical Mal dig at her profession as well. Seems to me that the Companion's Guild would have a lot of pull, if they were generally for it then you have a less jingoistic set of propagandists supporting the Alliance. And they have wiles you know.

Plus in parts of the frontier I imagine that people see the Alliance as the only law and order to be had. They may have been sympathetic to the Independant ideals but if it comes down to weighing ideals and feeding your children because the Alliance is the only thing keeping the bandits in the next valley at bay, then I'm sure some people would just nod and salute the flag.

I've been pondering something related to this as well, just another reason that the Alliance works so well as a foil to Mal and the gang by comparing it to the Empire from Star Wars. The Empire you take one look at and think evil, ruthless and intrusive. With the Alliance though they're callous, self-serving and bureaucratic. Both ain't good, but it's easier for me to relate to the Browncoats rather than the Rebels in Star Wars because I've seen that sort of indifferance and bad governance with my own eyes. It's easy to not like the Empire because they're basically (insert worst people you can think of) running the galaxy, with the Alliance it's as if the IRS got to run the 'verse and in a way that's just more believable and in a way scarier to me.

I do tend to go on but there it is.

"Pain is scary..."

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Sunday, April 25, 2004 6:09 PM

HARDBURN

Well, I think it's important to note that just like governments today the alliance isn't entirely evil or good.

For example in Serenity when the dortmunder comes by the wreckage, the captain is interested in whether there might be survivors. And is even willing to let Serenity escape when he thinks there are people in trouble. Plus it's important to remember that even though through the show the alliance are the bad guys. Our main heroes are criminals. Most of what the alliance does is about keeping peace and order.

Of course you've also got the people who are trying to hurt River. They would be a good example of it being evil.

As far as why anyone would support the alliance, I'm sure that the border worlds and all were probably in at least as bad a situation then as they are now, so maybe they didn't think it would be such a bad idea to let the alliance take a stab at running the galaxy. I mean if they didn't think that it could get anyworse it might have been a good risk.

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Sunday, April 25, 2004 8:25 PM

PURPLEBELLY

The Alliance makes possible the expensive and intercultural education systems and technologically advanced mass-media systems that give expression to shows like 'Firefly'.

Life on a border planet is one long, or short, reality show.

Or am I being too European?

PB

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Sunday, April 25, 2004 8:35 PM

GUNHAND

Border planets are reality, but with guns. So that makes it all manner of bearable.

Then again I could be being too American.

There's something about the Alliance that I just can't put my finger on. I know how I feel everytime I see a Purplebelly (on the show not towards any of our esteemed pro-Alliance folk around here) or cruiser, but I can't figure out a way to describe it.

Gonna have to work on that.

"Pain is scary..."

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Sunday, April 25, 2004 8:46 PM

AERRIN

From what I understand, the Alliance proposed to come into being under a platform that included things like universal education, health care, basic welfare, and protection under the law.

As long as you could be convinced that the Alliance could reasonably provide these things, it certainly doesn't seem like a far step to support them.

We've seen the Alliance be clumsily buearocratic, and we've seen some individuals be uncaring, but in general, the Alliance has yet to do anything really /bad/ as a goverment body.

No, I don't count River, because I don't think it was the Alliance, persay. I suspect that most of the government was not even aware of the school's existence, and I'm not entirely sure that their actions were known or sanctioned by any section of the actual Alliance. That's something that's open for debate, though.

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Monday, April 26, 2004 2:42 AM

LTNOWIS

In theory, if all of humanity was united under one government, there would be a complete end to war, because there'd be nobody to fight the Alliance. Oh sure you'll get some clashes and minor civil wars, but whenever people pick up arms they know that the Alliance will destroy them, so they have to solve their problems in a democratic, civilized way. That, and nationalism runs a lot thinner now that they're all culturally mixed and resettled off Earth.

Of course, I still would go against Unification, if only to fight the off-world invaders. But the Alliance would use lots of propoganda about the Browncoats being evil, and disunification as The Source of All Problems.

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Monday, April 26, 2004 3:21 AM

EMBERS

Well clearly the Alliance has made the rich and powerful very secure, they have made it legal to keep entire towns enslaved (like the Mudders of Canton), and I'm sure there are all kinds of 'tax breaks' and 'tax incentives' for huge corporations which help to keep the Alliance in power.
Of course Inara, and other guild members would be pro-Alliance, because these powerful rich men are their clients. They spend most of their time with the powerful so they identify with them and support their goals (and the lie that there is such thing as a 'trickle down' to the poor and weak).
If you were to ask people like the drunks at the pro-Alliance bar I'll bet they would not believe that their Government would do anything bad, like experiement on River. They would simply ignore any evidence to the contrary. They fought on the side of the Alliance, they have a pension from the Alliance, received their education and training through the Alliance, and so they accept everything the Alliance has told them: hook line and sinker.

Isn't that what most people do?

But then you have that strange anti-social bunch of anarchists (like Mal) who can't fit in with society and don't believe what they are told on CNN...er...whoever is managing the news 500 years in the future.

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Monday, April 26, 2004 4:12 AM

CARDIE

We also have to look at the worlds out on the rim where the Alliance has very little presence. They are brutal and lawless, ruled by criminal warlords. If you lived on such a world and the Alliance promised to come in and install basic law and order and rudimentary social services, a lot of people would want to give it a try.

We also have to remember that the Alliance is Blue Hand in glove with Blue Sun. Perhaps Blue Sun only comes in if you're an Alliance World, and folks want their futuristic Wal-Marts and McDonalds.

I think the War was not only a civil war but also a corporate takeover of the equivalent of your mom and pop retail store by a corporate giant.

Cardie

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Monday, April 26, 2004 4:18 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

Many good reasons here so far for why people might support unification.

I think the biggest reason would be because those that supported the Alliance were not being oppressed or mistreated by the Alliance. The main reason for a Civil War is because a group of people feel that the current government is not giving them the treatment they deserve, be it unfair taxes, disproportionate distribution of government assistance, neglect, lack of representation in government, or any combination of hundreds of other things.

I do think that the Alliance would have used propoganda and misinformation to cast the Independents as the "bad guys" and make the cause of unification seem favorable to as many of it's citizens as possible.

I also think that many people would have supported the Alliance because they have money, or power, or influence, or all three under the Alliance regime. If the Independents won, what would happen then? Would other worlds want to throw off the Alliance as well? Would the Alliance fall apart, costing them their power base or social status?

Many on the Core worlds would simply support the Alliance because that is what they have always done. The Alliance gives them all of the creature comforts, and they do not want to lose them, so they tow the line.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Monday, April 26, 2004 4:46 AM

CYBERSNARK

In response to the Star Wars "Empire" analogy:

The Empire isn't so much Evil (though it looks that way from the Jedi/Rebellion's point of view) as they are totalitarian. It's not always the same thing.

I actually think there's a very good Firefly parallel there, perhaps even hinting at the Reavers subplot.

See, the Alliance/Empire's main philosophy is that The Law is all that makes us different from animals (which are bad, and savage, and stupid, and generally not-nice). With no (or even just weak) laws, you get things like high crime rates, crippling poverty, social collapse, cultural degeneration, anarchy, etc. To this way of thought, a culture needs strong laws (and, according to Palpatine, a strong leader to apply those laws), otherwise it'll collapse into corruption and savagery.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's been suggested by the likes of Plato, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Machiavelli, Orwell and even most modern socio-political theorists.

The Independents/Rebels believe that strong laws can choke a society and end up abrogating the rights of the citizenry (the feds might think so too, but they feel it's worth it for the sake of security [Yeah, does that sound familiar?]). Or maybe some of them are wise/cynical enough to agree with the Empire's motives, but realize that their "strong society" will inevitably self-destruct into dictatorship and autocracy.

Also, maybe they believe that what makes us "human" isn't external, like laws or social constructions, but something internal, like a personal concept of right and wrong. Maybe they believe that our inner "animal" isn't something to be caged up and sealed away like a rabid lion, but something that has its own kind of wisdom and can be trained. They're just a little bit uncivilized, which makes them all the more civilized than the uncompromising stormtroopers.

Yeah, they're space-hippies.

Remember Mal's comment in The Train Job, about how he doesn't have a choice (about returning the medecine)? That's what the Browncoats were about --a decision from personal ethics.

To the Alliance/Empire, where all Good Behaviour(tm) comes from fear of reprisals, Mal's response (whatever he might tell himself) can only possibly be compelled by fear. Fear of the Alliance coming after him and punishing him for his crimes against society (the health and welfare of the villagers is irrelevent --Laws have been broken).

Basically, the Independents believe in personal justice and ethics, while the Alliance are the Lords of Order, living in fear of the "evil anarchists" who want to tear down society.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Monday, April 26, 2004 11:46 AM

CORWYN

The same reasons that people support the resulting government after the American Civil War. It was primarily a contest between local versus federal control, self-determination of states versus the union being more important than the states.

The first person to bring up slavery is required to include the date on the Emancipation Proclamation.

Thank You Kindly.

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Monday, April 26, 2004 1:36 PM

LEMAT

Corwyn,

1863, but when it had been the overriding political issue in Southern politics for a half century, that didn't matter so much.

Lincoln and--more importantly--anti-slavery forces in congress were going to try to stop the western expansion of slavery. This would have caused the slave states to lose their ability to block anti-slavery legislation in the Senate. The game was over even though the buzzer had not sounded, so the South decided to take their ball and go home.

Personally, I blame the constitutional convention. If an explicit end date to slavery had been given, then the south would have been more likly to form an agricultural voting block with non-slave states in the west as those had come into being, as opposed to trying to form the slave state block.

Also, you're a southerner. Poorer and less educated than the national average, and most likly not able to vote. You take your cues from your social betters, who have become rabid sectional patriots. What do you do when the war starts? You join up to fight the yankee menace. Same applies to not slaveholders further up the social ladder. Not everyone who opposed secession left the south; plenty of them joined up with the home team.

Jon

(edited)

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Monday, April 26, 2004 2:00 PM

LEMAT

Hmm, to answer the question in the thread, I don't know. Maybe the colony moons had been neglected for so long that they finally started acting like independent states, and the folks under the Alliance chafed at it.

Jon

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Monday, April 26, 2004 4:29 PM

GUNHAND

Quote:
Originally posted by LeMat:
Hmm, to answer the question in the thread, I don't know. Maybe the colony moons had been neglected for so long that they finally started acting like independent states, and the folks under the Alliance chafed at it.

Jon

This is a good point too. Another thing about the whole 'Verse Civil War that maps out to the American Civil War was a territorial distinction between the sides. You had North and South, in the 'Verse you have Core and Colony/Frontier. Lots of civil wars aren't so nice as to provide a line of demarcation between the sides.

So when we say the Core worlders supported Unification it wasn't like some guys on Ariel heard the Colony Moons fired off the equivilent of Ft. Sumter and went,"Hmmm, Jake I think these Independents have the right idea, gonna go sign up with them. Tom and Jack think the same thing but Ben and Jonah went down to the Alliance recruiter..." For the vast bulk of the population in the Core there wasn't any thought to it, they put on the Alliance uniform and went out to fight. Same thing in the Colonies, even if you think Unification may not be so bad the Alliance cruisers that pulled in to blockade and orbitally bombard the place aren't going to be very delicate in their targetting.

Border planets probably wound up being split with certain percentages siding with one side or the other depending on the local conditions. I'd be willing to bet that some of the nastist and bloodiest battles took place here even if they were considered sideshows by the Generals in the "real war", Kansas and Missouri spring immediately to my mind.

I think one of the traps that we can fall into is,"Well this sort of person would support Unification and this sort would support Independence" but even if phillosophically they could lean in the other direction, they'd be most likely to fight for their homes, families and neighbors. Sure there may be some that "went South" as the old expression went, Core world folk going out to the black to join the Independents and vice versa, but it wouldn't be very common I don't think. But it is possible, ironically enough one of my ancestors did this very thing during the American Civil War, born and raised in PA but fought in an Alabama regiment. But that wasn't all that common at all.

So one of the things I think we have to keep in mind with the Unification War, or War For Colonial Independence, or War Against Corporate Interference (hey we have about 10 names for our war, so should they) is that geography would be the primary vote on which side you'd support, unless you were on a Border planet or in a cross-human-space organization.

In the American Civil War the regular army pretty much stayed Union, very few Southern soldiers asked for release from their enlistment, while the officer corps did split heavilly on sectional lines. I'd be interested in seeing what the case was for that sort of thing in the 'Verse. Although from what I see of the Alliance I have a strong suspicion that the Alliance never had a standing army except during the war itself. Navy, yeah. But army, don't think so.

Again, all my own mindless theory on the matter.

"Pain is scary..."

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Monday, April 26, 2004 5:17 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Cybersnark, that was a very well put and articulate response. I enjoyed it.

I have recently identified the main reason why I am so *emotionally* attached to Firefly. It provides one of the few stories out there of people who prefer the exhausting uncertainties of freedom over the convenient security of a government that takes care of you. But most people (yes, look around you) have absolutely no problems with demanding that government take the responsibility of solving all our problems and giving up individual freedoms as the price.

I have no doubt in my mind that if we were all transported into the Firely Verse, most average normal people would choose to side with the Alliance. We Americans already make that choice everyday. As a country, our collective votes, whether on economic or moral issues, make it clear we want security over freedom.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

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