History of the Crew

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds

The Captain

RIVER: "Mal. Bad. In the Latin." The Train Job

The son of a rancher (born on the planet Shadow), Mal fought in the Unification War for the Independents, a sergeant who wound up commanding 5,000 soldiers in one of the war's bloodiest battles, Serenity Valley on the planet Hera (Zoe served with him). After the war, Mal got as far away from the Alliance as possible, heading for the border worlds to scratch out a living. And for the captain of Serenity (named for that battle), no job is too big, too small, or too illegal, as long as it keeps his crew together and his ship flying: "our perfectly legitimate business enterprises."

Captain Reynolds fancies himself a master planner, stealing from the rich and selling to the poor, dancing between the top-heavy Alliance and less valorous schisms of the interplanetary underworld, while trying to retain a soul that doesn't go to that Special Hell reserved for people who talk in movie theaters or cancel television shows before their time. Mal behaves as if he's the intellectual and moral superior to both the Alliance and underworld and therefore makes very few friends among either group.

Mal was raised by his mother on their ranch (on the planet Shadow). He always considers that ranching is a good life and with 40 ranch hands, they must have been fairly prosperous.

His home was destroyed (presumably in the war a few years earlier) and he now meanders the galaxy looking for paid legitimate (and not so legitimate) jobs for his bloody ugly space transport ship, Serenity. For this and many other reasons, Mal doesn’t trust anyone.

He's a much maligned dude, prone to tantrums of nastiness and rudeness. Zoë once explained to Simon why he is like this:

"In the war to unit the planets, the battle of Serenity was among the most deadly and decisive. Located on Herra, the valley was considered a key position by both sides and was bitterly fought over. The independent faction with sixteen brigades and 20 air tanks held Alliance forces at bay for almost two months until superior forces.....”

"He (Mal) was my sergeant. Commander of 30 young grunts. ..... Three days in, there were so many officers dead, he commanded 2000! He kept us together, kept us fighting, kept us sane. By the time the fighting was over, he had maybe 400 still in tact. I said the fighting was over, but you see they left us there. Wounded as sick and as near to mad as could still walk and talk - both sides left us there while they negotiated the peace...... for a week. And we kept dying. Mercy, forgiveness, trust...... those are things he left back there. What he has now is the ship. The ship and us on it."

Zoë also explained why Mal named the ship Serenity: "Once you’ve been in Serenity you never leave. You just learn to live there."

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

Zoë

The Soldier

Zoë Warren
The only other survivor of Malcolm Reynolds' platoon, Zoë joined him as Serenity's first mate to kick a little ass around the universe. And after a hard day committing mayhem wherever possible/necessary, she gets to come home to her husband Wash, Serenity's pilot.

She is the drop dead gorgeous right hand girl of Captain Reynolds. She served with him during the war and because he saved her life she feels partly indebted. She’s not just a pretty face; she’s also pretty capable of kicking ass when needed. She’s resourceful, loyal and dependable.

Although loyral, Zoë is not frightened of voicing her opinion if she believes the Captain or anyone else, is wrong.

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

Hoban 'Wash' Washburn

The Pilot

Raised on a world so polluted he couldn't see the stars, Wash entered pilot's training to get a look at them. But he got more than a job when he applied to be Serenity's pilot—he found a wife in the ship's first mate Zoe. A laid-back guy with an active sense of humor, Wash just wants a ship to fly and his wife alive and at his side. And if he's backed into a corner, he'll do what he must to accomplish those goals.

Wash has two plastic dinosaurs that he plays with from time to time.

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

Jayne Cobb

The Mercenary

A mercenary who didn't fight for either side in the Unification War, Jayne works for whoever pays him the best. At the moment, that's Mal, so that's where Jayne's loyalty lies -- until something better comes along. He's a lean, mean fighting machine -- unfortunately, his skill with weapons doesn't translate well to situations not involving money or violence.

But there's more to Jayne than meets the eye. When Kaylee gets shot in Serenity he reacts with the anger you'd expect, but there appears to be more to it than pure anger. An indication that's realized by a shot of Jayne waiting with bated breath to see if Kaylee survives her surgery.

Jayne also shows a human side in Jaynestown when a mudder throws himself in front of a bullet meant for him. Jayne is clearly conflicted by the act and spends quite a bit of time at the end of the episode trying to deal with it.

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

Kaylee Frye

The Mechanic

Cheerful, energetic Kaylee (full name, Kaywinnit Lee Frye) is Serenity's ace mechanic, a tomboy who accepts anything the universe throws at her with a smile and a bounce. Trained by her father, she's a natural mechanic, which got her the job on the Firefly Transport ship Serenity despite her total lack of experience with either that model of ship or a Trace Compression Block engine. At the same time, she can be flummoxed by particularly difficult problems ("Sometimes, a thing gets broke, it can't *be* fixed.") or by someone who sets out to break a machine instead of fix it, which seems a fundamentally foreign concept to her. (As when Saffron sabotages Serenity... twice.)

The crew's occasional forays into crime don't bother her, though she's not much good in a gunfight. Kaylee is a 'glass is half full' kinda gal. No matter what is going on around her, she's usually able to see the positive side of the situation. When describing the more questionable behavior among her fellow crewmates, she makes even the most illegal behavior sound adorable.

Whereas other science fiction shows involve an engineer for the ship who often talks in complicated technobabble, Kaylee tends to describe her activity in the engine room in very simple, organic terms: there's still a sort of complicated code-like semantics to her wording at times, but it's more like listening to people talk about 20th century cars or a sick friend than futuristic machinery.

Kaylee has her own quarters on ship (decorated with Christmas lights and the like), but she also has a hammock set up in the engine room (probably because her room is located as far from the engine room as physically possible -- Doyce) and often can be found there working or communing with Serenity, which she treats like another member of the crew.

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

Simon Tam

The Doctor

Once a talented trauma surgeon on Osiris, Simon Tam now finds himself on Serenity, serving as Ships Medic. Both Simon and his sister River are wanted fugitives, following River’s escape from “The Academy”. Although Simon originally boarded Serenity as a passenger on Persephone (with River in stasis concealed in a container), a hasty revival of River while under way required him to strike a bargain with Malcom Reynolds. Serve as Medic and keep on the move, or get off at the nearest planet, hospitable or not.

Although bound by the doctors Hippocractic Oath (First, do no harm…), there are no limits to what Simon will do in protection of his sister. It was at great personal and financial expense that he coordinated her escape from “The Academy”, going so far as to abandon his career, parents, and peers in Alliance territory to ensure her survival.

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

River Tam

The Fugitive

A hyper-intelligent child of privilege, River found the Academy she was sent to to be more of a torture center than a school. No one knows yet what The Academy did to her before her brother Simon stole her back, because she's still too traumatized to tell them.

But she and Simon need to keep running—because the Academy wants their experiment back.

Even at a young age River had an exceptionally intelligent mind. While Simon was smart enough to become a gifted doctor, River was so bright she corrected her brother's homework when they were kids and even found errors in his textbooks. Their parents spoiled them and lavished them with luxuries, even signing River up for the best of all possible education programs: The Academy. Simon and his parents thought nothing of it; she was an exceptional child and belonged in a private education institution that could cater to her needs—but a few months after she had been away Simon began getting perplexing letters from her. There were misspellings and references to events or individuals who did not exist. Simon theorized that the letters were actually written in some kind of code. His parents refused to take Simon's fears seriously, believing River was just being playful and Simon was irrationally over-reacting to River's absence.

They were wrong.

While her family thought she was safe in a private education institution, River had been taken to a scientific installation (possibly or probably funded by the Blue Sun corporation). Simon decoded his sister's letters and set out to try to get her back, seeking someone, anyone—even those living in Blackout Zones—who could help him help his sister escape. Money changed hands, and soon after Simon found himself captured by the local federal authorities—his father had to come down to bail him out. Upset that bailing his son out had tarnish his reputation, Gabriel Tam told Simon to give up his ridiculous mission, and Simon cut his ties with his parents by refusing to do so.

So.

Simon made arrangements, then made his way to Persephone and the Eavesdown Docks slums. There, he met with the people delivering cargo containing his sister in stasis from which she was later awakened on the Firefly Transport Serenity.

Unfortunately, the story of River Tam's history doesn't quite tell us who she is, but where she comes from. Exactly what River is now remains uncertain. River's brain was operated on countless times while The Academy had her in its clutches and she was treated for all intents and purposes like a laboratory animal. They still consider her their property, stolen by Simon Tam, and they will stop at nothing to get River back so they can finish whatever it was they were doing to her. (Simon knows for certain that, among other things, they cut into her brain. They even stripped her amygdala, which is a part of the brain used to control emotional responses and 'filter' incoming information. As he describes it: "She feels everything; she can't not.")

Precisely why they did these things to her is unknown. The most likely purpose was to turn her into a sort of assassin or spy. However, since the series was unceremoniously cut short, any answers to the uncertainties of motivation are assumptive. We do know to a degree of what she is capable.

River has taken a firearm and, without looking, killed three men with three shots.
She has snuck on board a bounty hunter's ship without the bounty hunter's knowledge and thwarted his attempts to take her back to Blue Sun.
She has shown an aptitude for extraordinary assimilation of knowledge and data recall, empathy, and even what appears to be some form of psychic "reading" ability.
She has been known to make statements, sometimes cryptic and sometimes direct, which sound as if she can read someone's mind or know of events in a stranger's past which she could not have known.
She has never shown an indication of being able to predict the future, but she can seem to extrapolate probable outcomes based on past experience and knowledge.
She can just look at an individual and glean more about their history and personality than some could learn from a person in years of friendship. Sometimes her statements are hard to decipher because she talks in a way that she understands but others have difficulty comprehending.
And she's a hell of a dancer.

River's state of mind is inconsistent and unpredictable. Simon Tam administers semi-regular treatments of medication that seem to improve her ability to cope with her own mental damage for short periods of time, but these treatments have side-effects which leave her physically ill. When in good spirits, River likes playing with Kaylee and occasional practical jokes with the crew. She's potentially very dangerous, however. She's caused damage to Jayne on one occasion, slashing him in the chest with a large knife (but... was she attacking him or the Blue Sun logo on his shirt?).

[H. "Wash" Washburn]

Shepherd Derrial Book

The Preacher with a Past

We first meet Shepherd Book on the Eavesdown Docks on Persephone. He had just left the Southdown Abbey and decided to get out into the world... bring the word to those as need it told...

Less than two days later... "I've beaten a lawman senseless, I've fallen in with criminals. I watched the captain shoot the man I swore to protect... I think I'm on the wrong ship."

He wasn't, but was he even a shepherd; a man of the cloth? Jubal Early surely didn't think so (Objects In Space). Didn't think he was a shepherd but not necessarily a member of the 'church.' There are clearly monastic orders as no-one thinks that's unusual. Monastic orders can have specific functions in the hierarchy of a large religious organization including martial orders (e.g. Dominicans originally). There's a lot of history there that doesn't have much to do with being a common preacher.

Book signed on to Firefly as a passenger before Simon did, which on the surface appears to rule out his being there specifically because of the Tam siblings. Kaylee could read his body language rather well, and her intuition told him he was a good soul who was more interested in the ships than in the destinations. He admits to her that he had once sailed on a Firefly ("Long before you were crawling.") He admitted to having been "out of the world for a spell."

There seems to be some serious skepticism that 'Book' is actually a long tenured member of a monastic style order who's primary secular boss is the 'church' that exists in the 'verse. All cues indicate a long tenure in the abbey, but as most stories (sci-fi and otherwise) have the enigmatic yet suprisingly capable preacher be ex-military/police/criminal. People assume that Joss Whedon would just do the same here. How is this conclusion comparable to analysis of the other characters of Firefly? Would Joss have decided to have this one character be the cliched 'reformed ex-military/police/criminal/alliance'--seems unlikely.

So, who was (or is) Book?:
An undercover agent for the Alliance?
A double agent for Independents who had infiltrated Alliance trust?
A retired Alliance officer (or Alliance Federal Marshal) who 'got religion'? (My personal theory. -Doyce)
An operative of Blue Sun, keeping an eye on River and Simon?
Perhaps a ex-con? Perhaps at one time worse and more sadistic than Adelei Niska, but who had since found religion?
A member of a specialized order of the apparently very influential 'church' that pervades the 'verse. An order that is akin to pre-industrial Jesuits in terms of information gathering & problem solving for the church hierarchy. This would explain the Ident Card respect as who wouldn't fall over themselves if the card said the equivalent of 'Cardinal Such-and-such, Spanish Inquistion' or 'Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (current Pope Benedict XVI's former position).'

What do we really know?
Was being a shepherd just a cover or had Book joined the Abbey for a few years, perhaps immediately after the end of the war, and sincerely set out to live a life of moral and spiritual enlightenment, only to find himself fall into this "den of thieves"? He seems to genuinely care for River Tam and Jayne Cobb, but in Objects In Space River hears him think "I don't give half a hump if you're innocent or not. So where does that put you?" when only she and Jayne are in the room.

He's definitely not what meets the eye. On the surface Book appears to be an ordinary man of God in an extraordinary situation, dealing with people straddling the fine line between good and evil, but there are other indicators that, while inconclusive, do persuade one to believe he may have ulterior motives. For one thing, when Book finds himself suffering from lead poisoning without a medic on board (in Safe), Malcolm Reynolds orders Wash to the nearest Alliance outpost for medical help, expecting to eat crow. Just as the Alliance officers deny medical assistance, Book has them check his Ident Card. He's almost immediately wheeled into the operating room, no more questions asked. (Not common Alliance treatment even for men of the cloth.) Also take note of the teaser of War Stories and his pro-active stance towards rescuing Mal.
He knows a fair bit about the criminal element of the 'verse. Current information, in some cases more than the professional criminals that he flies with.
He knows how to shoot (and well), and can identify relatively rare weapons merely from the hole they leave in a man. A level of shooting that would've required a lot of practice to achieve and maintain. Has the supreme confidence in his shooting skill that he can take snapshots from the hip with a carbine and make the shots hit in a not immediately lethal location and did just that. Equal to the finest commando level of skill. He picked a carbine versus a pistol or an assault rifle indicating a preference that is unusual as police would tend to pick a pistol and military infantry types would pick an assault type weapon (ala the weapons used in the opening scenes of Serenity 1 & 2).
He knows some martial arts (disarming and knocking out a lawman in Serenity). Confidence in disarming an unstable firearm wielding maniac.
We know he never married and therefore has no children or grandchildren. (Or so he says.) Indicating that as he considers things: procreation comes from marriage. Also implying that sex outside of marriage wasn't an option (for him at least) as that may lead to procreation.
We know his religious order requires he not cut his hair. Further evidence that he *is* in a religious order.
We know he studies a version of the Christian Bible (which apparently survives another five hundred years relatively intact) but we don't really know the name of his denomination. There seems to only be one non-descript denomination in the 'verse--a side-effect of the great migration?
He knows his way around a spaceship, especially a Firefly class. He's been on one before, but it was an older model. He knows intimate details of spaceship engineering functions despite not having flown in quite a spell.
We know that he felt prepared to take up arms to defend a friend. He implied, though we do not know for sure, that he would not go as far as cause another's death.
He appears to be at the youngest, 55+ years of age. As far as people that appear older than him on the show there are very few. It's a hard life in the 'verse.
He intimates that he has been in the abbey for 20+ years ('before you were crawling'). There is some disagreement on this. His behavior is consistent with that of someone having spent a long time in an abbey/religious order, even one as unusual as this one seems to indicate.
He will sometimes resort to foul language (in Chinese).
He is called 'Book'--that's not his real name apparently. He never states anything but Book or Shepherd Book as his name. Alias? Code designation? Had to give up his prior identity before joining the order (not unheard of)?