Loading the Canon: The United Alliance of Planets

This is another entry that I've been working on for a while. Hence the fairly broad span between the 'Posted' date and when you may actually see it here.

One of the great things about the Firefly campaign is the perspective of the Characters. We see the 'Verse through the eyes of Mal and his crew, each of whom had a different perspective on the Alliance, Unification, and what they wanted out of life. Mal and Zoe were both ex-soldiers who fought for Independence. Jayne didn't care. Simon and River were young and living in the Core and probably didn't have a lot of exposure - much like 'Nam would have been for children of the 60's, or Desert Storm to children of the 80's, or the current wars to children of the 90's. Inara was actually for Unification.

Different characters, different perspectives. For the audience, it was mostly Mal's perspective. He didn't really seem to consider the Alliance as Evil. He just wanted to be left alone to go his own way. We could easily imagine that if the show was about characters on the IAV Magellan we'd have a very different view of the United Alliance of Planets.

In-Series and BDM Canon is fairly vague about what the Alliance is really about. We know they're referred to as Federals, thus implying some kind of Federal government. We also know they're main governing body is a Parliament, suggesting some sort of democracy. Given that the Alliance was founded on the shoulders of "Earth's two last Superpowers: China and the United States" it's hard to imagine just what sort of unified government is running the show. The United States was (well, at least is now) a Two Party state with elected leaders, while China is (was) a One Party Communist state with a heavy Capitalistic influence. Given my early 21st century perspective on these things, the only sort of state I can see coming out of that is, well, kinda messed up.

Where'd the Parliament come from? Who knows. Parliamentary democracies are popular in Europe and some Asian states, but don't really tie back to the founding super powers. Given the context, like other things in the 'Verse campaign, we just take it as something that is, consider it Canon, and move on.

See how I glossed over that?

The Series doesn't really give us much more than the existence of the Alliance. There's no specifics other than the implication that regional commanders have a fair amount of autonomy and various officials are somewhat limited in their scope of operations. The BDM gives us only a little more to go on, introducing 'The Parliament" as something who's power could be broken. I always took that to mean the sitting government, rather than the body itself. Like the Tory's or Labor or the Rhino Party. Whoever's in charge will face the wrath of the voters and have to deal with the fallout.

Of course, it also implied that 'this' government was the same one who was in power when the Pax was originally used. Otherwise, they'd just pass the blame off on their predecessors like the politicians they are.

One thing that the Federal system implies is that the local worlds could have a lot of freedom in just how they handle their own local governance. We see a glimpse of that in the episode "Shindig" where we see that Persephone has an actual Noble class. In other instances, such as "Our Mrs Reynolds" we see that the local elders have a great deal of control, and in the pilot, we have Patience as the de-facto leader of the entire colony. That, incidentally, is where I based the concept of the elected leader of a small colony's main township being the de-facto leader of the entire world.

We see this autonomy in a number of places, but there's also a lot of places where it's kind of confused.

The main 'presence' we see of the Alliance is through their troops and Marshals. In several scenes we see anything from a two man patrol to a platoon strength unit. Sometimes it's soldiers in the classic "Purple Belly" infantry armor. Other times it's the bland gray uniforms. While we never see a lot of them at once, we see them in a lot of different places, which implies a broad presence, if not a major one.

Though, in contrast, and often in the same episodes, we see examples of local law enforcement officers, which again implies some autonomy. Or, at least, the Federals aren't the only game in town. Though, in the BDM, we have the Alliance paying local security companies to handle security duties on some remote colonies. Why don't they have a local Sheriff? Who knows. I put it down to Drama and Joss needing a hook to get Our Heros involved and a vault to hide from the Reavers in.

So, where does that leave us as players?

Good question.

Near as I can tell, "The Alliance" wasn't detailed out enough during the course of the show and movie to give a definitive answer. We do know there were implications of Self Rule for the colonies, with the Alliance sending in some Federal presence to 'show the colors,' so to speak. That leaves us, as Game Masters, a lot of flexibility to run our local sims as we see fit. It also gives us, as players, the flexibility to have our personal experience with the Alliance be what we need it to be. If Mal and Inara could have very different views of the Alliance, it's perfectly acceptable for us to as well.

What is canon here? Hard to be sure, but I would go with: "The Alliance is a Federal system with a varying level of influence depending on where you are. All of the colonies in the Verse are, at least on some level, encompassed by the Federal system, and the Federal presence on any given world could be quite varied: from total control, to the occasional patrol on the ground by Uniforms from the local Cruiser."

Too vague? Maybe. But it's the best we can do given the source material.