consequences wrote:Presumably their ID cards are coded. There could be any number of apparently random data groupings that would actually signal 'VIP, critical personnel, render all assistance' when scanned. Its also possible that he's carrying a false ID of the requisite level to provide him with that type of pull.
It's possible this, it's possible that. You're doing a very good job building a castle on thin air. But we'll run with this "it's possible" for a moment. If he's trying to keep his head down, why would he have a code on his card that will draw attention anytime the Alliance scanned it? Just in the off chance he got shot and the nearest hospital happened to be on an Alliance cruiser? Maybe River isn't the only psychic on
Serenity.
Remember, according to you, Book is really part of a rival intelligence agency within the Alliance which knows about the Hands of Blue project--a project so secret and so important that the Blue Hands guys casually murdered Alliance marshalls in a brutal, agonizing manner just for talking to River. So your spy, who knows about the project and is opposed to it, has taken the trouble to change his face and his identity, but he just so happens to be carrying an identicard which could potentially draw the attention of his most dangerous enemies.
How many grunts know about precise sector boundaries, and how one sector will react to the murder of another sector's people on their turf?
Who said anything about precise? They were EIGHT SECTORS outside Womack's jurisdiction. You don't need to know exactly where the boundary line is to tell you're way the hell past it. And a former cop WOULD know how other cops would react to Womack disappearing.
There is a profound difference between "I would be there if it weren't for you" delivered in a slightly accusatory tone, and"I don't give half a hump if you're innocent or not!" said with positive relish of the fact that this person means nothing to you.
Three psychics, since apparently you're one too. The fact of the matter is, her own brother had hostile thoughts about her--and for that matter, Kaylee didn't look glad to see her, either--and you're taking the fact that Book was MORE hostile to mean that he's a spy. Of course, River is capable of detecting this contempt, but not the fact he's a spy. She knew Jayne sold her and Simon out right away, but she's been riding with Book for months and isn't afraid of him, hasn't made any cryptic remarks about him, nothing.
But hey, you're apparently a mind reader, because you know that Book wasn't just frustrated at that moment, or indulging in the evil thoughts that everyone occasionally has but rarely reacts upon, that that thought was directed at Jayne (Inara and Mal weren't thinking about her, and they still seemed to address her when she read their thoughts), or even that a girl who moments later saw the floor of the cargo bay covered in leaves simply misread him. Book thinks that one thought at that one moment, and you know it means he's a spy.
Um, he said 'that's no shepherd', not 'that's not all he is', or 'you think that's all there is to him?'. That would seem to indicate a lack of sheperdhood, not someone who was once something else but became a shepherd to escape his past.
More mind-reading of fictional characters. Another borderline lunatic makes a statement with more than one possible meaning, with no further explanation ever offered, and you know it means whatever is necessary to support your hypothesis.
Hey, if you want an alternative theory, he's one of the head independents who caved in and betrayed his people to the Alliance. As such, he presumably knows where a number of the bodies are buried, and has time bombs of info ready to be released if he should buy it, therefore the Alliance wants to keep him alive.
That's not an alternative theory, that's more unfounded explanation. You're just making this shit up as you go along, aren't you?
The trouble is, there's no easy way to reconcile his theoretical regard for human life with the contempt he displays for River in Objects in Space. One of the two is an act.
A crazy girl who can't tell a gun from a stick reads one line which may or may not have been directed at her, and that somehow overrides the fact that he's NEVER said or done anything that supports your theory.
You know what? Even if you're totally right about that line, and he really does despise her, do you know what that proves? That he despises her. That's it. All your silly spy bullshit still falls to pieces because you don't have a shred of evidence holding it together.
The only people I can recall him making extraordinary effort to keep alive were Alliance, in both the first episode, and the Message. His behavior in the episode where they go tor escue Mal may have been the pragmatic approach of leaving wounded alive to demoralise the enemy, force them to expend effort to care for them, and possibly expose themselves in an effort to drag a buddy out of fire. There's nothing saying that the decision to shoot to wound has to be made out of niceness.
Um, you DO realize it's much, much harder to make a knee shot than a chest shot, right? Are you contending he was risking his own life and that of his fellows in order to demoralize the enemy? They were trying to get in and get out as quickly as possible, and do it alive, and shooting to wound, especially a difficult shot like a kneeshot against a moving target, is counterproductive. The ONLY thing that makes and sense is that he was genuinely trying not to kill people for moral reasons, because there's no practical reason for him to do so.
