The Operative: Something left to see?

So...is there really "nothing left to see"? What became of the Operative after the BDM? Did he just ride off into the sunset, never to be seen again? Did the Alliance goons chase after him and give him what for? Did he turn over a new leaf and become Mal's new best friend? Did he go on a crusade to expose government cover-ups of PAX-gone-wrong experiments?

Your thoughts on the character of the Operative.

I think the Operative has an arc that we'd see. He knows too much about both Blue Sun and Parliaments side projects to disappear completely, and there's a lot of exploring his character would also like to do. But at the same time, he can't really approach the crew overtly without one of them probably trying to kill him. And because of what the Operative is and his background, he'll continue to have ends justify the means mentalities, which in your fic leads to him seriously manipulating things behind the scenes, and in my fic makes him a bit prone to kill first, ask questions later.

Going off comments on the dvd i don't think Joss would have any interest in continuing the Operative - and i'm grateful he hasn't popped up as recurring fallen big bad in the comics. (EB - check the end of TLB for what the Operative and others know and think about Blue Sun).

that said; the character is too interesting and the actor and his voice just too damned arresting to let go so easy!

i have the Operative (under a new name) moving around the fringes (possibly with a loose connection to the new Mr Universe), working undercover on a listening post, feeling his way from the outside back in, helping slip ships past the Alliance in dangerous nether-space, passing on info and (possibly) bumping the odd Parliamentarian off.

there's maybe a potential for some atonement/redemption but i only brought him up in a couple of cameos and, in the movie, he really was a monster, hard to keep sympathy with for any length of scribbling time.
but i hear a world open up with Mal's line "Just don't be expectin' a thank you is all."

it's good to see ficsters using him as a character again now we're some distance from Serenity's release.

And this was actually my first firefly/serenity-fic, in response to a question at a now defunct UK posting board.
Eventually becoming a coda to a much longer story.
Setting is a few months post BDM.

.................................................Quicksilver


“Well that is something.”

The voice crackles static and the screen flickers with tiny phosphene fires.
And the man who is listening sighs.
“Just-” he says. “Just avoid this quadrant; the belt’s unstable, your scans won’t be able to predict the asteroids or the flares.”

“Oh I surely will. Just don’t be expecting a thank you is all.”

“Acknowledged.” A second sigh. A rubbing of the eyes. A clicking of switches.
The familiar music of forward watch-room five.
That and the momentary silence.
Broken.
The already buckled door hurled open, the Ox stands there steaming and grinning. “Heads up Quicksilver, we’re wanted men.”

Quicksilver turns.
“Yes. Of course we are.”

.....

The uniformed boys wore typical shades of Alliance grey, blue and purple. Their Boss, deeply pissed off, was coloured apoplectic. Together they stood staring at the soiled crew of three before them as if the men were interlopers; a drunken mob disturbing a particularly placid game of golf.

The Boss shook out the arms of his jacket.
“This everyone? Ok then. It has come to our attention that we may have a problem here. This outpost – outpost...?”

“311818183.AO7/Gamma Nine. Sir.” A helpful aide.

“Thank you Lt. Yes, this tin hole here is supposed to listen – it is a LISTENING post. It is not supposed to TALK.”

The meeting room, already cramped, seemed to shrink wrap around the men inside it.
It was uncomfortably hot. The music here was hull and bulkhead, metal insulation, misfiring food dispensers.
“Well?”

Captain Ullman managed a shrug, a gesture made easier by his over large work shirt.
“Did you want me to reply?” He looked sincerely surprised.

The Boss however was clearly having trouble controlling himself.
“No.” He grated. “I wanted an apology – I wanted “I’m sorry Sir, we understand Sir – we know the importance of your operation and our own gnat like insignificance. We know you are the Boss. We know we are go-se.”.”

The Captain raised a hand, the Ox was beginning to breathe hard and there was little enough oxygen as it was.
But the Boss hadn’t finished. “Your LISTENING post has started warning people way from the area, let me rephrase that; you’ve been telling people you’re here! And when I say ‘people’ I don’t mean the good and obedient citizens we represent, oh no, I mean flotsam, jettsam, scum, fluff and refugees who are entirely supposed to end up with a face full of hot rock!”

He pressed a hard gloved finger into the recording device that Blue Boy no.2 was holding. A tone was emitted then a voice, a worn voice, a woman’s, rising above the din of her craft and her children. “Bless you Beacon. We’re turning away, following your new co/ordinates, guess me an’ my kin aint found a way through this quad’ yet (hush now!) – but we’ll keep tryin’ thanks to you. Thank -”
The hard gloved finger had stabbed again.

Captain Ullman’s eyes were small. “Am I supposed to let them die?”

“You are supposed to do your job. Listen to the scum but talk to our boys. Our boys who have to make it through this hell space too, our boys who do so because they also have a job to do.”

The Captain shook his head. “If it’s a reprimand Sir, you could have saved yourself the trip and told me over the radio.”

Here the Boss actually laughed. But it was not a good sound; teeth snipping at his lips.
“Radio?! Oh yes, because you keep such a tight station here that you can’t even get the visual channels working! Well...” The teeth burst out in a smile. “That’s OK Captain. I think it only right that I should say this to your face.”

The gun, the shot and the death seemed to rip out of nowhere in an instant of cordite and screams.
“You’re fired” said the Boss.

And now the Ox roared, flaring his nostrils, head low, fists raised.
The Boss’s aides took him down efficiently with an electroprod and net.

“You see?” The Boss turned to Quicksilver, the only crew member left. “I can smell insurrectionists.”

The boys dragged out the smoking body of the Ox. The corpse of the captain was next. Quicksilver said nothing. The Boys left.

.....

“They’re good boys. A good crew. Loyal.” The Boss seemed happier now.

He was staring out through the Obs port of the forward cabin and watching his ship roll easily between the sun-hurled rocks and debris; the mass of the exploded planets that made up the quadrant. There were numerous small explosions of unstable gas and matter. But his ship was steering true. Off to the edge of his vision he could see the in-coming Parliament vessel.
“Ah...”he sighed. “ There she is.”

A canine shadow of black against the violent red storm around them, Quicksilver was murmuring co/ordinates into the scrambled transmitter. The Boss waved out to the vessels before him. “Now you see how smoothly things run when I am here to personally over-see them?”

“Yessir.” said Quicksilver. “And I’m glad you’re here to witness.” He was on his feet now.
“But I’m sorry...” his right hand jabbing out suddenly into the Boss’s lower back and twisting. Breaking. “No death is a good death, but life itself can sometimes be a waste.”

The Boss was pressed spastically forward against the glass, his dying eyes wide, wide, wider still as they saw the fast sleek arrowhead of the Parliament ship slide swiftly and safely between two large fists of rock and right into the bridge of his boys’ own craft. An instant explosion then nothing - just hot metal dust.
The Boss’s legs were beginning to go.

“Do you know what Quicksilver is?” said the voice behind him, soft in the distance. As sure and as hard as the bloody steel sword he was wiping. “It is a transforming agent. It takes waste and turns it into gold. Do you understand?”
The Boss’s response was unclear.

In any case the com was suddenly erupting with the frantic yells of yet another incoming craft, yet more voices; “Help! MAYDAY! Can anyone hear this? – God – help us – we thought we could find a way through but we can’t – MAYDAY! MAYDAY!”
Quicksilver strode to the desk and began to reassuringly give co/ordinates.

After a while a voice on the com said,
“Thank you.”


the end.

I imagine there's a lot of military incompetence in the Alliance. Lots of ego and posturing. And a bit of corruption thrown in. Boss reminds me just a little of Womack from The Message.

Bytemite wrote:I imagine there's a lot of military incompetence in the Alliance. Lots of ego and posturing. And a bit of corruption thrown in. Boss reminds me just a little of Womack from The Message.

it may be purple and brown but it sure isn't a black and white 'verse. i love trying to show the shades of murk; incompetence, larceny, power-mongering... villainy comes in all flavours including Alliance and Independent.

oh well, sure - also bravery, loyalty, sacrifice. ok, ok, LOL.

It's kind of fun to write moderately decent Alliance officers, who are just a little mislead and therefore still antagonistic to the crew.

wytchcroft wrote:it sure isn't a black and white 'verse. i love trying to show the shades of murk

^ In a nutshell, one of the reasons I love Firefly (and writing Firefly fic). Well said, wytchcroft.

And on that note...I remember watching "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" with my husband, and remarking to him, "Is there any reason we know that this character is 'The Good,' other than he's being played by Clint Eastwood?" Give me shades of grey!

Ha, no, not really. I guess he has a white hat? And I think he's slightly less double crossing than the other two, but gets pissed off and does just as bad to them around the end.

Bytemite wrote:It's kind of fun to write moderately decent Alliance officers, who are just a little mislead and therefore still antagonistic to the crew.

well, to state the obvious: Jayne was never a browncoat and Inara voted for Unification. Mal is respectful of at least one of them.

Mal 'gets' Haymer too; there's no knee-jerk "purple is as purple does" in Mal at all.

ebfiddler987 wrote:

wytchcroft wrote:it sure isn't a black and white 'verse. i love trying to show the shades of murk

^ In a nutshell, one of the reasons I love Firefly (and writing Firefly fic). Well said, wytchcroft.

in my case the emphasis is on trying.

well, to state the obvious: Jayne was never a browncoat and Inara voted for Unification. Mal is respectful of at least one of them.

Ooh. Is it Jayne? It's Jayne isn't it? (half joking - I do get your meaning though)

Mal is sometimes tolerant of Alliance types. Whether he stays tolerant depends on his mood and whether he thinks they're respectable or trustworthy. He'll still make snide comments out of ear-shot (or gun-shot as the case may be).

And he'll even snip at Inara about the Unification thing now and then, like in Dead or Alive. Sometimes he's REALLY over-sensitive. Toss Mal and Inara together, and, well, they're both a little proud and haughty in their own way. Little bit of the primadonna in them.

I always viewed Zoe as being the one who was least tolerant of the Alliance. Just listen to what Zoe has to say about Core planets when they land on Ariel! ("All Core planets are the same!" -- prejudice showing there, anyone?) Mal has no love for the Alliance, but he's not as intolerant of the individuals who serve the Alliance. Some are bad, some are good, and most are somewhere in between. Mal is less likely than Zoe to paint individuals all with the same brush.

Oh, no argument there. Zoe's the one that continued to try to blow them up after the war was over. Mal doesn't really LIKE them, but he is more live-and-let-live tolerant.

Bytemite wrote:Oh, no argument there. Zoe's the one that continued to try to blow them up after the war was over. Mal doesn't really LIKE them, but he is more live-and-let-live tolerant.

It is interesting to me how Serenity Valley is sort of the valley of darkness for Mal;
a mental purgatory he never leaves; the eventual (writer/audience) expectation being that a positive arc (i.e. BDM) would see him heal, nourish and grow beyond the need to keep himself lost there. And eventually the symbolic ship will go. (hello Becky).

Zoe? ok Zoe, what i think now?
Containment.

I kept a cool head on her shoulders post movie/post-Wash (as i gather the comics* are doing) but i'm not sure now that's actually true to her character (though it may be a testament to Wash's).
the baby makes a difference maybe.
maybe.


*i keep forgetting how much of Zoe's character i see differently now and BECAUSE of the (earlier) comics. small irony there.

I think Wash might actually have calmed Zoe down, before then she didn't really trust anyone anymore except Mal. And towards the Alliance she had a lot of hate and defiance, still does, but she mostly controls it. Every now and then it comes out though.

Like in Zoe's mug shot I mentioned that they have on the Serenity Blue Ray extras, you can TELL she is mega pissed off. She glares at the camera, turns to the side, and then flips the bird, and the look on her face, you really have to see it to understand the kind of hate and anger I'm talking about. Mal just looks tired and a little annoyed in comparison.

Perhaps she only SEEMS level headed in the post movie comics because we haven't yet seen her reaction to 1) Reavers, or 2) Alliance law enforcement/ military types. I have a sneaking suspicion she might lose her cool very quickly with either one.