why did the alliance fix him up for free?
why did jubil say he wasn’t a shepard?
Oh, just that small question?
It is one of the great mysteries of the Firefly 'verse. There are a great many theories, ranging from ballerina (Ron Glass’s old joke from conventions) to being an Operative himself. Some believe he was hired by the Tam family to watch over River and Simon. Some believe that he held a position of power within the Alliance and fell from grace.
One of the most interesting new developments was from the Browncoat cruise. Before the cruise Ron called Joss and asked, “C’mon, can you please give me some new information about Book?” a couple of things were mentioned, but the one that sticks with me is that Book isn’t totally organic. He has something cybernetic in him.
Look forward to a new comic Joss is putting out which will be all about Book for some more insights!
Book is the final Cylon!
I have long assumed he was an operative before he became a preacher.
I always thought he was a famous soldier for the alliance.
if i could make up his back story up he would have lead or would be very important for the alliance attack in the battle of serenity valley. Saw what happened and left for a cleaner life.
Just saying it would have been awsome to see that scene when Zoe and Mal found out.
I agree that he must have been an operative. He’s always cool under pressure, which most civilians wouldn’t be. I am intrigued with the idea that he might be a human hybrid of some sort. Are there FireFly comics out there?
I don’t have any official basis for it, but while discussing Firefly with one of my friends he mentioned that Joss Whedon is trying to get a sequel to Serenity movie made which will include an explanation for Shepard.
Correction, after doing a bit of searching Whedon officially said there is no Serenity sequel. So disregard that =(
Whoo, TGPaL this is a good question. If there’s not already one (I’ll check) can we make a list of the stuff we’ve picked up from the 'sodes. It’ll be like Clue, except, mostly, nobody dies.
oh I love Clue! do you know the Hasbro PC game? it’s awesome!
Well we know he holds some kind of high status with the Alliance. We can probably rule out a political status (like a former parliment member) and say military since he knows how to kick ass (“Serenity Pilot”) and is skilled with a firearm (“War stories”).
I think we can rule out him being a high ranking military officer (though is possible) because he seems to have a high level of knowledge for the nuts and bolts side of being a soldier. You might see this in a junior officer or Special Forces officer, but an enlisted soldier would make more sense.
So either he was some kind of well known military hero of the alliance or an operative.
In “The Message”, we see that he has knowledge of how law enforcement works (something he would know if working covert ops for the alliance) and when river hears his thoughts in “Objects in space,” we see a very dark side of what is probably the most moral character on Serenity.
So in the end, I still have to go with he was an operative.
That was my first thought. But he was taken out quickly by Early–I’m not sure an Operative would be.
I’m now thinking some kind of other hush-hush functionary. Neither Operative or Hands of Blue, but something else.
Well he was in a monastery of sorts for a while so he would have lost his edge.
Wait, there’s a PC game of Clue? How do you move the little lead pipe and candle stick around the board?
there’s a nice recap of Shepard Book attributes on the Firefly wiki. Never knew his full name so here’s the entry from that fine Web site:
Derrial Book. (although, in the special features on the DVD, He is labled as ‘Ron Glass - Neria Book’)
I’m going to start my rewatch over and keep notes for sure.
oh, the game’s even better than that. it’s 3D animated, you can move around the house, great atmosphere, you gotta play it at night, it’s all dark and gloomy and the thriller music and the thunderstorm and the voice of an English butler commenting the game and in the rooms there’s lots of little things you can do, like if you touch the piano in the music room, it’ll make a … well, like the sound it makes when you hit any five keys at the same time really hard. and when you make a suggestion, it’ll play a video with the person you suggested doing a murder with the weapon you suggested. mrs white with the rope is pretty cool, she hardly manages to pull it off.
3D clue? These days kids don’t know how to play a real board game. I will never play this pc clue…clue belongs on a board. Evil! Evil! Evil! lol
I think the Shepard, in the end, was an operative. I used to think he was like Mal, since he did “sail on a firefly” beforel. Maybe he was a spy. But, clearly, he not not one of the good guys…The best clue for this, besides “Safe” was whenRiver reads his mind
I guess the only thing we can assume Book is an operative becuase that is only thing in the current cannon that would make sense. He could be something that we have no clue about and we wouldn’t know about it until they release new material.
According to several sources they’re going Dark Horse will be publishing “Firefly: A Shepard’s Tale” that will shed some light on him.
I got this from here, but it’s in a lot of Firefly Fan sites too:
http://www.whedon.info/Firefly-A-Shepherd-s-Tale-Comic,27109.html
Oh yeah, I can’t wait for that, but I usually buy the paperback collection after all the individual comics have been published.
but I will get this one for, er hem, the SO’s rapidly approaching birthday. I will try really hard not to look at it before it goes in the gift bag. Yeah, that’s the ticket!