Firefly: Serenity

[Riedquat]

You don't think there may just be a ''weeny-bit'' of a connection there?

No.

I'm getting shades of "must pigeonhole things into either 100% good or bad" and "anything that seems to contradict the choice of pigeonhole must therefore be dismissed, or I must find some way of making them not count." Not even willing to accept the concept that the net result might well lie on one side but there were aspects of the other, not even that some good can come out of bad even if it doesn't come close to outweighing it. Simpleminded, unsubtle 100% good and evil is the order of the day.

The Empire left behind some things India still uses. If there was no benefit from them they'd be gone. Sadly some try to twist acknowledging that as "defending imperialism and colonialism."

[J!!]

You can certainly make the argument that India is better off after colonialism than they were before it, just like you could argue that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein, or that Tibet is better off under the Chinese boot than they were as an iron-age theocracy, or that the Jews are better off now than they were before the Holocaust. But it'd be slightly fucked up to suggest that that such things are therefore justified.

[GreyICE]

The British empire did have a few pieces of good in its centuries-long history of genocide, torture, mass murder, slavery, and unending brutality. Yes. None of them were "ending the caste system." They strongly propped up the caste system.

Come on, even if you don't know history, apply basic logic. If GE was putting money and managing a company for 20 years, and then they withdrew their money and presence and a year later the company went bankrupt, you wouldn't say "Wow, GE's money was ending that company!" Except perhaps in the sense that their incompetent management ended the company, but you wouldn't give GE accolades for that.

“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.”
— Winston Churchill, unpublished memorandum

https://longreads.com/2020/06/18/the-long-con-of-britishness/

[Riedquat]

You can certainly make the argument that India is better off after colonialism than they were before it, just like you could argue that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein, or that Tibet is better off under the Chinese boot than they were as an iron-age theocracy, or that the Jews are better off now than they were before the Holocaust. But it'd be slightly fucked up to suggest that that such things are therefore justified.

No-one is making those arguments though. The argument was that there were some positives. Not that they weren't drowned out by the negatives. Simply that not everything is 100% black and white, and it's depressing how many people seem to think in such extreme terms - refusing to acknowledge the possibility of anything that doesn't fit in with that one extreme or the other view, that everything has to be either completely good or completely bad. The good can do no wrong, the bad can do no right.

[Darth Wedgius]

What I saw of Firefly, I liked, though the (I'd like to phrase this differently) subvert-the-expectations humor got a little predictable for me. Yes, you're not Starfleet. Point made. It lost something when it wasn't a surprise any more.

But I did like the gray nature of the protagonists. I don't know how many of us are heroes or villains, but a lot of us are gray. Or grey, depending. We're complicated like that, and it can be more interesting to watch complicated people being complicated complicatedly. I'd already seen space cowboy cartoons (e.g., Bravestarr, Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers) so that was pretty much a neutral for me.

Also:
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[Freeverse]

You don't think there may just be a ''weeny-bit'' of a connection there?

No.

I'm getting shades of "must pigeonhole things into either 100% good or bad" and "anything that seems to contradict the choice of pigeonhole must therefore be dismissed, or I must find some way of making them not count." Not even willing to accept the concept that the net result might well lie on one side but there were aspects of the other, not even that some good can come out of bad even if it doesn't come close to outweighing it. Simpleminded, unsubtle 100% good and evil is the order of the day.

The Empire left behind some things India still uses. If there was no benefit from them they'd be gone. Sadly some try to twist acknowledging that as "defending imperialism and colonialism."

Perhaps if the question had been framed differently, I would have felt the need to elaborate. "No" is the short answer.

The long answer is far more complicated, but I recognize that I don't know enough to paint an especially accurate picture of the occupation or the war for independence. One thing I do know, is that while it may have been written down one year after India gained independence, the caste system certainly did not simply disappear, and the effects of both the caste system and Britain's rule still affect India to this day. So the idea that "it happened so soon after we stopped oppressing them, I'm sure this is because they learned about liberty from us" rings pretty hollow.

So, yeah. The actual effects of British rule are certainly a deep rabbit hole. But do I think that Indian society becoming more liberated is one of them? I say again... No.

[Mickey_Rat15]

The relationship between the OuterWorlds and the Alliance in the 'verse seems much like the relationship between the Star League and the Periphery in the BattleTech univdrse. The Star League is presented simultaneously as a great golden age in human history that was built on a forced unification of known human space under the House ruling Earth by the stronger central on the statesouter states who were not interested in joining the club. This caused a lot resentment in the Periphery that ultimatey destroyed the League. It was not quite the same but tasted familiar.

[Beastro]

The worldbuilding doesn't have to all come at once, it can be slowly shown and fleshed out as the show goes on. Firefly lacked the time to do all that much worldbuilding; if it was going to have been a short run from the start I'd have expected more but sadly it wasn't.

The best kind of way to establish a setting is to lightly sprinkle information around that encourages the audience to pay attention and piece it together which gets them invested and immersed.

It's why the stereotypical opening crawl info dump is almost always a bad sign as it means the people behind it either don't have the patience (or weren't allowed) to take their time and want you to know everything NOW.

Okay, I realize that this is outside the bounds of discussing the relative merits of the show, but what the hell are you talking about with that British helped end the caste system nonsense? The caste system in India existed throughout the entirety of the history of the British Raj. Legal caste-based discrimination didn't end until 1948, AFTER India achieved independence.

“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.[To Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati religious funeral practice of burning widows alive on her husband’s funeral pyre.]”

― Charles James Napier

[CharlesPhipps]

I thought it was explicitly the Alliance wanted to annex the Outer Colonies.

And did.

Also, we get plenty of signs of what a piece of shit government the Alliance is in every single episode. You know, up to and including the fact SLAVERY is legal.

Also, can we leave the discussion of the British Empire out of this? The Browncoats in Firefly were meant to invoke the ex-Confederates except without, well, being the horrible piles of shit they were. Basically, keeping all of the classic Western tropes without their association to the genocide and slavery apologia they were. Mind you, Firefly is actually CLOSER to the REAL Wild West since American media eliminated the massive number of Chinese and black Americans who were instrumental in its activities.

[Mickey_Rat15]

Shepherd Book was pretty darn interesting, the good man in a crew of criminals...

There were clues dropped that Shepherd Book was a bit more than a simple clergyman on a grand tour of the outer 'Verse in a tramp freighter. He had a unusually high clearance with the Alliance for what he was as well as respect from Alliance personnel. It would seem Book had a past life as a high ranking Alliance officer of some sort, perhaps even an Operative.