Serenity Found

by Jane Espenson

  The ideologies underpinning the action hero emphasize individualism, isolation, and confrontation. They say that the hero is an island, alone-he may have friends and compatriots, but the ultimate responsibility for their well-being and his own rests solely with him. In the action hero’s universe, right and wrong are clearly demarcated, an action hero knows the difference between the two instinctively, and because he is always right, he can make the world fit his views. But this world he inhabits is a difficult and dangerous place, populated by far more foes than friends, and so the hero must meet them head-on and aggressively.

  It’s a fantasy that is simply not useful for the ways we live our lives today and may very well be a recipe for disaster. It’s time to stop buying into it. It’s time to accept that we’re never going to be action heroes, and think about what we are instead. Because when we look around at the world we actually live in, that world is digital. It’s time for us to embrace our inner geek.

  Let’s re-evaluate what it means to be a geek by taking another look at Mr. Universe. Sure, the image is a little unspectacular, but the substance is awesome. He’s able to access all digital information everywhere, so he’s practically omniscient. He’s extremely intelligent and knows how to get the most out of the technology available to him. Moreover, this must be a financially successful strategy, because he seems to own his very own planetoid, as well as the fortress, satellite dishes, and associated computer hardware, including the lovebot. (And may I just point out here that the Serenity crew, by contrast, own little more than the clothes on their backs and the junk-heap they fly around in. Action heroing may look good, but it doesn’t seem to pay the bills too well.) So if you’re starting to think that maybe geeks aren’t that unappealing after all, I have some good news for you: if you have an Internet connection, can make your computer go, and have ever bought or sold anything on eBay, then there’s really little difference between you and Mr. Universe, it’s only a question of degree.

  Looking around at the ways we’re using technology and the kinds of activities we’re engaging in, we can start to discern the emerging ideologies of geekdom, which sit in opposition to those of the action hero and are much more life-affirming. The first of these is what Mr. Universe would call the truth of the signal: everything is information and information is everything. This doesn’t simply mean that knowledge is power or that the pen is mightier than the sword, although these clichés are indeed applicable. Saying that everything is information acknowledges that we’re all the same in binary code. If the things that define us can be expressed in a series of ones and zeroes, then concepts like gender, race, age, religion, and politics are simply different patterns of on and off, rather than chasms to divide us.

  More than that, information is communication. Unlike the action hero who stays strong and silent with no one to turn to, geek culture is predicated on the constant flow of information. Admittedly, this can occasionally seem like a bad thing, especially if the main way people communicate with you is to dump hundreds of e-mails in your inbox every day. But Generation Y will assure you that e-mail is, like, so yesterday . They’re the first generation to grow up with computers, and they’ve turned constant communication into an art form, expressed creatively through a variety of media. Like a democratic hive without a queen, they communicate constantly to maintain the networks of their peers. SMS and IM are among their most commonly used communication tools (Lenhart et al.), but MySpace, Facebook, Habbohotel, blogs, YouTube, and MMORPGs are also important arenas for social interaction. And it’s a very reassuring thing to know that you are never alone: your peers are all around you in cyberspace, only a click away.

  This hive, or ambient peer network, provides excellent opportunities for fun and play. Unlike the ideology of the action hero, which sees life as a grim battle between right and wrong, geeks prefer their battles to come with magical items, ph4t l3wtz, cool graphics, and the prospect of resurrection. Online role-playing games like Guild Wars and World of Warcraft enable us to play a good guy or a bad guy as the mood takes us, with consequences restricted to the fictional universe. Alternatively, we can take advantage of the many opportunities for more . . . adult social “play” and make virtual love not virtual war; either way, it’s still healthier than real war. The ideology of geekdom says that life should be fun, that play is part of life and should be undertaken with great enthusiasm.

  The implications of the democratic hive are starting to make themselves felt far beyond the social arena. In Australia, for example, viral e-mail campaigns from key NGOs have educated the public about the implications of new workplace legislation, spread the word on public protest days, and provided efficient and effective ways of petitioning government ministers (Your Rights at Work). In the Philippines in 2001, anti-Estrada groups used text messaging to organize smart mob rallies, which were instrumental in overthrowing the government (Rheingold). As Mr. Universe says, you can’t stop the signal. In the era of instant digital communication and the democratic hive, geeks are making sure the truth gets out.

  Our digital connection-the signal that brings us together-is not only creating global communities, it’s also disrupting traditional hierarchies of knowledge. Where once we accepted that corporations, universities, governments, and traditional news media were the authorities of public knowledge, now we’re much more likely to create and vet that knowledge ourselves, and to take for granted our right to do so. It’s no wonder then that blogs are gaining ground on traditional media as consumers’ preferred source of news; they offer an immediacy and personality to news that old media just can’t match (Loewenstein), and more fundamentally, they provide a multiplicity of perspectives, which come together to create a composite image of the truth. Similarly, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit and contribute to, Wikipedia, has destroyed the canons of knowledge and famously spawned “wikiality”truth or reality as established by consensus (a term first coined in 2006 by Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report).

  But perhaps one of the most pertinent examples of the power of the democratic hive is Serenity itself, or more specifically, the Internet-connected, international fan networks of Browncoats and others who kept interest in Firefly alive after the series was canceled. Meeting online through fan sites, spreading the word through blogs, e-mail, and in my personal case, earnestly thrusting the series DVDs into the hands of friends and saying, “Watch this. You will love it. Tell everyone!”, the democratic hive created enough lasting popularity that Universal Pictures decided to take on the project of the Serenity film. Significantly, Universal took advantage of the fan networks in its marketing campaigns for the film, with a range of Internet-based promotional material including the “R. Tam Sessions.” Even now, the Browncoats have remained active in many areas, using their connections to raise money for charities and Firefly-related events.

  Welcome to geek culture: you’re standing in it. It’s democratized, decentralized, viral, and playful. There’s no room for action heroes here: if anyone’s going to save the world, it’s going to be all of us, together, each doing our own thing but communicating with the others all the time. The future we make can be a consensual one, if we forget about being heroes alone against the world and accept that we’re heroes-in-common. We only need to stop valuing image over substance, belittling our achievements, and ascribing to an ideal that will never make us happy. Instead we should take heed of the reminder contained in Mr. Universe’s name-that smart, tech-savvy people are out there, everywhere, universal. Geeks of the world, unite!

  I am indebted to Terry Pratchett for his philosophy on the eternal popularity of kings, which I have adapted for the case of action heroes.

  NATASHA GIARDINA is a lecturer and senior research assistant at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She is currently investigating the ways young people engage with new media technologies and the kinds of online and offline spaces they inhabit. She wears her “Geek Pride” badge with honor and encourages others to com
e out of the server room.

  REFERENCES

  The California Browncoats. 2007. 28 February 2007.

  Campbell, J. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1968.

  Giardina, N. “‘Paladins rule, okay?!’ Young people constructing identities and forming communities through online and offline fantasy role-playing systems.” Paper presented at E-merging realities: youth/media/education. Australian Teachers of Media Conference, QUT: Brisbane, 6-8 October, 2006.

  Lenhart, A., M. Madden, and P. Hitlin. “Teens and Technology: Youth Are Leading the Transition to a Fully Wired and Mobile Nation.” Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2005.

  Loewenstein, A. “Bloggers of the World, Unite.” The Sydney Morning Herald Online. 20 January 2007.

  Pratchett, T. Feet of Clay. London: Victor Gollancz, 1996.

  Rheingold, H. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2002.

  Wikiality: The Truthiness Encyclopedia. 2007. 4 February 2007.

  Your Rights at Work. Australian Council of Trade Unions, 2005. 3 February 2007.

  Sometimes reality reads like an excerpt from The Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World, 1984, or pick your own favorite toe-tappin’ dystopia. Government secrecy hides alarming agendas, freedoms are curtailed for our own “protection,” and religious ideology grows stronger as it encroaches further into our daily lives. When religion and government begin to view science as an enemy, or even more sinisterly, as a tool to manipulate for their own purposes, we would do well to become concerned. Wharton reminds us that our now is Mal’s yesterday, and-geez-that makes more and more sense.

  The Alliance’s War on Science

  KEN WHARTON

  After watching the movie Serenity and the episodes of Firefly, one might come to the conclusion that the show’s creators did not like science. Or scientists, for that matter.

  After all, the movie opens with white-coated “doctors” plunging needles into a young girl’s brain, and builds up to the revelation that secret scientific experiments killed 10 million innocent people and created the Reavers. True, the scientists are not portrayed as the main “bad guys”-the soon-to-be-skewered whitecoat in the movie’s opening scene seems particularly hapless-but without these scientists and their hideous secrets, the Alliance would probably seem like a pretty decent group of people.

  You might also draw the same conclusion from the quite different scientific leanings of the “good guys.” Malcolm Reynolds and his gang don’t much care for fancy research. Serenity’s only technician has never had any formal training-machines just “talk to her.” True, they have a well-trained doctor on board, but that’s just a bit of happenstance. Indeed, we’re continually reminded throughout the series that medicine can be used for evil as well as for good. In the Firefly pilot episode, even Simon threatened to withhold medical treatment for Kaylee unless Mal helped him escape the Alliance.

  And Captain Reynolds himself hardly ever mentions anything technical. When he does, he demonstrates that he understands the basic principles well enough, but has no interest in anything he can’t put to direct use. For example, in the Firefly episode “Shindig,” Reynolds saw an impressive floating chandelier at a ball on Persephone. “What’s the point of that, I wonder?” he said. “I see how they do it, I just don’t get why.” A telling remark: pure science is not of much interest to our heroes.

  So, do these stories carry an anti-science message? I’m going to argue just the opposite. The Firefly universe is just showing us the consequences of the perversion of science, extrapolating some of today’s anti-science trends to their logical conclusions. The open scientific method that human beings use to find truth and discard falsehoods-untrammeled by government or corporate interference-simply isn’t evident in the Firefly universe. In its stead, we see a future in which the enemies of modern science have won. By showing us such a future, I argue that these shows are actually pro-science, right to their very core.

  Like all good science fiction, the Firefly universe supposes that there is a plausible path that connects our current reality to the imagined future. If it weren’t obvious enough from the languages and slang used in the show, Joss Whedon has come right out and said that the Alliance is supposed to be the fusion of two different cultures from Earth: American and Chinese. The “science” practiced by the Alliance presumably also has its roots in these two cultures. And sure enough, one can find a lot of parallels between what is portrayed onscreen and what has happened-and is happening-here on Earth. Of course, many technological advances have come out of both China and America, but these advances were accomplished in spite of certain anti-science trends-some of which seem to be getting worse every year.

  Ancient China was arguably the most technologically advanced civilization of its time on Earth-That-Was, inventing gunpowder, printing, and the compass. Six centuries ago, China had a vast navy, with boats reaching lengths more than twice that of a typical Firefly-class vessel. But that navy was soon decimated by a sequence of top-down decisions from China’s emperors; by the year 1500, it was illegal to sail in a ship with more than two masts, and by 1525 such ships were being actively destroyed. The net effect was irreversible for centuries; in a few decades, China’s leaders had thrown away an entire field of useful technology.

  How was such an act possible? Many of us have become accustomed to viewing science as a steady march toward more knowledge-indeed, used properly, that is what the scientific process does. But here is an example of a few decisions by a few leaders negating centuries of technological advances. It is certain that such a large step backward was made possible by the fact that China was politically centralized, effectively giving complete power to a single person. The Alliance, as portrayed in the Firefly universe, is not quite so centralized, but they are still in the position of letting a few bad decisions do enormous damage to particular scientific fields. Indeed, if they could cover up the existence of Miranda for years, surely they also have the power to quash any area of scientific research they find politically unpalatable.

  But China’s anti-science sentiments did not reach their zenith for another 400 years, when Mao Zedong-deeply suspicious of intellectuals-effectively stopped all education for a decade. Ironically, this misguided effort immediately followed a period in which tens of millions of Chinese starved to death because Mao could not distinguish between science and ideology.

  That story revolves around a Soviet politician named Trofim Lysenko, a pseudo-scientist in charge of the USSR’s Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lysenko claimed to be a biologist, but did not actually do any science-he merely claimed politically acceptable results from his falsified and uncontrolled “research.” He claimed, for example, that seeds exposed to cold conditions actually changed the heritable genetic makeup of the plant. True, this flies in the face of genetics, but Lysenko encouraged the official proclamation of genetics as a “Bourgeois pseudoscience”-its teaching and practice were banned throughout the Soviet Union. When actual biologists pointed out Lysenko’s errors and misrepresentations, they were persecuted, sent to prison camps, or simply killed.

  As a result, in the mid-1900s, Soviet biology ceased to be a science and became an ideological game: inconvenient truths were simply denied, while any viewpoint that agreed with the ruling political philosophy was assumed to be correct. Over in China, Mao imported these ideas and put them into agricultural practice-clearly because he was unable to distinguish between scientific knowledge and his similar ideological beliefs. Tens of millions of Chinese starved, simply because these ideologies were passed off as scientific fact.

  The lesson here is that science-the pursuit of factual knowledge using the scientific method-can be perverted and destroyed by ideology. Consider the fictional scientists who added the “Pax” to Miranda’s air processors. The movie Sereni
ty argues that this was ideology-driven research; they believed that human nature could (and should) be changed, and they evidently made some horrible mistakes as a result. Given the existence of such ideological “scientists,” the mistakes almost seem inevitable. There must have been negative side effects during the original test studies; no one reacted to the drugs as expected. But it’s not too difficult to imagine an ideologue ignoring such reports, if the inconvenient facts didn’t fit with their mindset. Maybe scientists who raised questions about the whole line of research were quickly discharged from the project and sent to the Alliance’s version of Siberia. Subjecting science to political whims and fancies not only degrades the science, it can even stop science from working in the first place, as in the case of Lysenko.

  After Mao’s disastrous “Great Leap Forward,” China slowly re-embraced scientific knowledge, and they are now making great efforts to “catch up” to America and Europe. They’re spending big research money on particular fields-but most of the papers they manage to get published are not important or interesting enough to be cited by anyone else. Plagiarism, bribery, and data forgery appear to be widespread; peer-review of scientific papers is more about political schmoozing than the quality of the research. And the mandated research directions are not chosen by scientists, but rather by politicians. Consider their state-directed push toward a manned space program, geared more toward boosting national pride than any novel technological achievement. Still, the overall problem that continues to hobble Chinese science is the same as it was in the Soviet Union: a simple lack of scientific freedom.