Episode 512: Unusual Alliances, Special Features

DIALOGUE TO REWIND FOR

Part 1:
The Operative: Put down your weapons and I will release them.
Kiera: Or we could just shoot you and get this over with.
The Operative: Then they will not be released.
Kiera: I don’t know. If you’re dead, they oughta be released from something.
The Operative: This isn’t magic.

The Operative: Then you came here. Where is the Director?
Rina: Six feet under, I hope.

Joshua: Oh, no. We would all be dancing in glee if we managed to kill her. And I say that from the standpoint of someone who is against killing.
Rina: (to Joshua) You need to revise your list, dear.

The Operative: Pain can be useful.
Joshua: (grim) I understand pain can be useful. I am not short of experiencing that. She goes beyond pain being useful. Pain is pleasurable to her.

The Operative: Well, traditionally a locked door says do not open.
Rina: Depends on what side of it you’re on.
The Operative: If there was any confusion about what side of a locked door you were supposed to be on, I’m sorry. When you were locked in, the thought was that you would realize you were meant to stay there.
Rina: It wasn’t a matter of confusion. It was a matter of consent.

The Operative: Suffice to say, while I am confident in the power of words and negotiation over the mere power of violence, I am not opposed to using violence if necessary to solve a problem. So! If as a last resort our negotiations fail here and you take it upon yourselves to act in violence to solve this situation, let it be known that should something happen to me, the ship in orbit above this thing is ordered to bombard this area with enough ordnance to ensure that there are no survivors. And that would include your ship.
Rina: (natch!) That would also include you, would it not?

The Operative: That’s the spirit, Miss Sullivan. Keep up your emotional strength. You may need it later.

Joshua: (to Kiera) Next time, just shoot her. I wish I could have told you to just shoot her.
Kiera: I wanted to. The only reason I didn’t kill her was you.

Joshua: The problem with the bombardment is that it happens when we take her out.
Nika: We don’t know that. She’s claiming that. But how the hell are they gonna know she’s been taken out?
Kiera: That and she doesn’t have to die.
Rina: Yet.

Nika: Okay, so … (points past our door) … If that guy is Malcolm Reynolds, then who the hell did we pick up in space?
Rina: It could be another man named Malcolm Reynolds.
Nika: Okay. That’s bizarre. There are things such as coincidences, but that’s just bizarre.
Rina: (eyeroll) So? It’s not like his name is copyrighted.

Joshua: Aughnnn … (recovers) … I do not know what’s going on but this is not comfortable.

Joshua: Kappa.
Nika: Is crying?
Arden: Well … Kinda. It looked like she was trying to resist the urge.
Rina: To do what?
Arden: To cry.

Joshua: If it got you guys free …
Rina: I’m not leaving you.
Nika: Okay, you can leave that trailing right there or you can finish it and I can smack you.
Rina: Get in line.

Nika: When have we ever taken up that option?
Joshua: I know. I know you’ve never taken that option. I’m giving you the option.
Rina: Joshua, were you not here when I offered myself up and she slapped me into next week for even considering—
Joshua: I know, I know. I knew that when I said it.
Kiera: (to Nika) They keep throwin’ themselves on the altar like we appreciate it.

Kiera: Yeah. So, like, get off. You’re not getting any gold stars. It just makes us mad! It just makes us mad. Right, Captain?
Nika: That’s right.

Rina: Ow!
Joshua: She didn’t do anything.
Kiera: Because. She will. And you’ll do something just as dumb. Just give you a few minutes.

Beglan: If you’re so smart about this, what do you think we should do?
Kiera: (bitterly) I shoulda shot her when I had the chance.
'Beglan: That’s probably what we should have done. What should we do now?

Nika: She doesn’t like messes. I wonder how loud and messy we can get?
Rina: I don’t know. Quite a bit.

Kiera: We need to talk to her to find out what she wants from us. She said ‘I’ll come back and negotiate’. So we gotta figure out what it is she wants. Maybe what we need to do is ask. As Captain, you need to ask what we can do to make her life easier, that she’ll want to let us go. Cuz obviously we’re not going to stay here. And we’re gonna cause her trouble.
Nika: And we’re messy. And loud.
Kiera: That means she’ll kill us so she won’t have to deal with us anymore.

Part 2:
Nika: (hard) As an example: I don’t like leaving a lady with a kid in here.

Kiera: I’m trying to do it your way where people don’t die but talk. And that’s a thing I’m not accustomed to.
Joshua: I’m listening. I’m not going to argue with that.
Nika(to Kiera) You bargain all the time. What are you talkin’ about?
Kiera: (eyeroll) All right, fine. I do it a lot. I prefer to do it behind a gun.

Kiera: Right. I mean, if all else fails, bend over and seem like … not that we’ve given up, but we’ve accepted.
Nika: They are not going to believe that from us.
Kiera: I don’t know. Giving up and talking with them—
Nika: They are not going to believe that from us.
Joshua: I love her to death, but …
(He doesn’t even have to say it. He just tips his head at Rina. Kiera’s not inclined to give up.)
Kiera: I’ll sit on her.
Nika: And for Arden, it’s next to impossible to keep his mouth shut.
Arden: Heyyy ….
Kiera: We can just tape his mouth shut. Kiss him. It’ll keep him shut up for a while.

Joshua: Kappa thinks I’m a ... (breathes a laugh) … If I had to hazard a guess, Kappa looks at me like I’m a broken toy, that can be fixed and put to use. But I will say that Kappa’s a product of the Academy too which means Kappa has the exact same flaws in relation of the Operative as I do and that River does.
Kiera: So she may be under more control than we’re thinking and she doesn’t like it either.
Joshua: That’s possible.
Nika: Now, there’s an angle we can exploit.

Joshua: Technically I’d remember the phrases if I didn’t put myself in horrible pain while I’m at it.

Nika: I’m pretty sure that’s a safety mechanism.
Joshua: That’s really too bad. That was Icelandic.

Nika: We don’t know what either of them want.
Kiera: That’s the thing of the deal—finding out their soft spots.
Rina: Yeah, and then gutting them.

Joshua: Okay, so what else do we have, folks? Do we have anything else at all? Love?
Rina: My two fists.
Joshua: (checking it off) Love.
Arden: That’s all we need.
Kiera: Really?
Arden: I’ve heard that love is all you need.
Kiera: Oh? Then love the door.
Rina: You go hump the doorknob and unlock it.

Joshua: I’m thinking here and nobody is helping me out here. More resources?
Rina: My two fists.
Joshua: We’ve got that covered under ‘twenty people’.

Kiera:How are you guys useful again? No wonder this project’s failing.
Joshua: I did offer to be given up if you would prefer that. The Give-Up-Joshua routine.
Rina: No.
Nika: (eyeroll) Sure. Let’s give you up, Joshua.
Rina: No.
Kiera: (wicked grin) Yeah, if we really thought about how useful you were—
Nika: (catching on) We’d already be dead.
Kiera: Yeah. ‘We got the one that’s a dud. We keep whacking it and we can’t get any channels or anything. We can’t listen to good radio’.
Nika: ‘Every time I put my boot up his ass, something else goes wrong’.
Kiera: ‘Percussive maintenance has not worked on him’.
Joshua: For the sake of my sanity, I’d like to emphasize love. (points to his imaginary list) Like, several times. Just to remind myself.

Nika: Can you lie with a straight brain?
Kiera: Sure.

Kiera: All you do is commit to it. It’s reality until it’s not. It’s just a commitment issue.

Arden: You don’t want her to be too obvious. You want her to think that you think that she doesn’t know what you think that she knows that you know.
Nika: (clutching head) Uhhnnn! My brain just exploded.

Joshua: Wait until they get closer.
Kiera: They might be closer than you think they are. Cuz we kinda left a mess of the other two floors. And I just kinda think it doesn’t matter what we do, that’s gonna be it. Cuz we ain’t got nothin’. Just standin’ down here like hamsters in a hole. Just waitin’ for the snake to come.

Rina: It’s a suitably Russian ending. I can get behind it.

Joshua: So … Air ducts?

Voice: Now, now. That’s not part of the deal.

Part 3:
The Operative: Ah, Captain Earhart.
Nika: Can’t blame a girl for tryin’.

The Operative: The sensible thing would be to kill you all. Right?
Nika: Probably. Of course, it could be we could do something for you.

The Operative: I have no needs. (leans in and whispers) That whole Operative thing. I have committed myself to the well-being of the Verse.
Nika: Well see now, interesting enough, that seems to me that we might be on the same side in that.

The Operative: You see, this is usually the moment where somebody would try to offer me to save their lives. And at the moment, you really aren’t doing it.
Nika: I don’t know what it is you really want.
The Operative: Yes.

The Operative: So why don’t you tell me what your cause was. Why don’t you tell me what sent you to Miranda.
Nika: (grim smile) I had friends.
The Operative: That’s not a cause. Friends and causes are different things.
Nika: Fair enough. For all of that, you’re probably right. I probably haven’t had a cause since the war.

The Operative: ...I am concerned about these claims that … Agent Kappa was … inhumane in her treatment.
Nika: I would say that’s an understatement.
The Operative: Well, let me say that interrogations are not necessarily friendly activities and so there’s a certain amount of inhumanity which is part of the job.

The Operative: Which Readers have you known that have served the Alliance well? Do you know somebody that I am not aware of? They don’t tell me everything.
Nika: I know one who when he believed in his missions and goals, serves quite well, on a regular basis.

The Operative: I think you’re holding up Cmdr. Wise as the top-of-the-line trustworthy source—
Nika: I did not. No. I said that I have never had an issue with him serving.
The Operative: Serving you. As I said, friendship and being able to perform the mission are different things. Frequently contrary things.
Nika: For a man who doesn’t want to kill, the fact that he is willing to do so if I ask, I’d say that’s a pretty significant step.

The Operative: I see. Well you may have encountered hundreds of Readers in your day and your activities. I have not. To my knowledge, there are not dozens out there.
Nika: Is it a natural talent?
The Operative: I couldn’t say. I am not in the loop of how these things work.

Nika: Like I said, it was a simple curiosity sort of question and since you were entertaining my curiosity for a moment, it seemed worth asking.
The Operative: I am afraid I am going to provide fewer answers than you would like because, like I say, it is not my business to ask questions that are not pertinent to my mission nor is it useful for me to retain information that is not.

Joshua: Welcome back. Was that as productive as you’d hoped?
Kiera: You came in through the door. That wasn’t good.
Nika: No. You think?

Kiera: They keep calling you Cmdr. Wise. Are you really his kid or is that really just a thing? Cuz if you’re really his kid, she’s not going to kill you.
Arden: Oh, if we’ve only had weeks to talk about this.

Joshua: Did you figure out what she wanted? Did you ask what she wanted?
Nika: Basically, she wants the Independents put down. She doesn’t think we’ll be useful as a mole. (snorts a laugh) I don’t know why.
Rina:' Well, I think that suggests she’s trying to plant moles into the Independents.
Nika: Well, d’uh!
Joshua: D’uh!
Rina: (unfazed) So? What kind of moles? Mind reading moles?

Joshua: If I thought it would get everybody out of it, I’d offer.
Rina: I would refuse to leave.
Joshua: I know you would. I said ‘if I thought it would do any good’.

Nika: Well, I’d give my integrity up, but I’m not going to be a mole for her in the Independent movement. Forget it.
Joshua: But see, that’s the difference, isn’t it? You maintain your integrity, which I actually really admire.
Nika: Even if it’s misplaced.
Joshua: I don’t know it’s necessarily misplaced.
Nika: I’ve been informed it’s highly misplaced.
Joshua: I don’t think it’s necessarily misplaced, I just saying that in my mind people that I love are more important than anything else that I have, and so—what? (off Nika’s look) Why are you looking at me that way? How is that statement not true?
Rina: (softly) No, she’s looking at me.
Joshua: What? I-I’m … Wordless Captain, speak up or forever now hold your peace, etc. etc. etc.
Nika: You just sat there and implied that you cared more about this crew than I do, because you would give everything up for your friends and you would go ahead and agree with her.
Rina: I didn’t get that.
Joshua: No. That’s actually stupid, to be honest. Not saying what you’re saying is—I’m saying that what I would actually do is stupid. You love everyone just as much as I do, you just have integrity in addition, is all I’m saying. I don’t have integrity. If you see the difference.
Nika: There are certain things I will not give up. Even for you.
Joshua: Which is what I’m saying. I’m saying that makes you a better person.

Nika: (quietly) Simon Tam is the only reason Brian is still alive.
Joshua: I’m not asking anybody to leave the other crew behind.
Rina: He’s that Dr. Tam.
Nika: Yes.
Joshua: How many are there in this Verse? River will be happy to know he—
Nika: Shylya’s friend, Zoë, had a Dr. Tam aboard her ship. He was a brain surgeon.
Rina: Oh. Yes.
Nika: He is the only reason that Brian ever woke up from that coma. I cannot leave them here.

Nika: I owe him … everything.

Rina: (very softly) Bozhe moi. (louder) All right. What’s the plan?
Nika: I don’t have one. I’m absolutely at wit’s end. I have nothing.
Rina: (wry) Well, you know … it’s not like we haven’t been there before. Our plans generally go to shit anyway.
Nika: There is that.
Rina: Maybe we should just fly by the seat of our pants.
Nika: (breathes a laugh) I’ve always done better that way.
Joshua: There’s a reason I’ve stopped asking for plans.
Rina: Well, that makes one of us.

Kiera:' I need to talk to the Operator.
Guard: You mean the Operative?
Kiera: Yeah. Operator, Operative. Whatever. I need to talk to her.

Kiera: It’s your favorite sociopath.

Kiera: Look. I’m a bargaining woman.
The Operative: I expected you to try for some bargain.

Kiera: See, I know somethin’ about this crew that you don’t. They’re nice people. And if you—
The Operative: Ah, yes. The power of niceness. Well, yes. I thought of using that. I try to be nice, actually.
Kiera: I have no doubt. You seem to be patient.

The Operative: You may recall, I was not coming in guns ablazing. You are all still alive. I have colleagues who have not afforded you the same.
Kiera: No, and that is why I felt I could come and talk to you because … if you give them a goal, like a person to save, you could practically send them anywhere. If you hold something out, they are the nicest people and they will take anything or anybody to go save that person. So all you got to do is say, ‘I don’t know. My own daughter is being held hostage on a planet somewhere and if you could help me get her, then we can talk.’ And ship them off. Feed whoever you want with them. Have them take somebody. By your assignment, to have them watch over us to make sure we do what we oughta do and they will go there.
The Operative: Now you see we have the prisoner’s dilemma sort of situation. Since once you say that, then of course if I say ‘yes’, you can go back and say ‘hey, I made this deal’ and they will know and then that won’t work.
Kiera: Well, no. I’ll tell them ‘but there’s an innocent person involved, you got to’ and they’ll go. I mean that’s the thing. I’ve got to tell them I’ve already offered it.
The Operative: Why should they believe there’s an innocent person? Unless I can get an innocent person involved, why should they believe it?
Kiera: Because they’ll believe anything. They don’t understand how genuinely nice they are. You’ve got to say, ‘Person in danger. Help me get them’. And they will go there and get them. It is like a directed weapon only they don’t know it. You just shoot ’em at things. It is like a maelstrom wherever they go. You can keep that power leashed here or you can unleash it on whoever you want.

Kiera: It has got to be painfully aware to you, you could not have missed, that they have the biggest giant need to save the Universe of any group of people you’ve ever met. Much to my horror, mind you, they have given up job after job where we could have made lots of money—lots of money—and yet, I’ve been forced to do it for free. So if you got someone anywhere that you can hold out the big giant candy bar of ‘everyone’s going to love them and they’re gonna get angel wings’, they are so there.

Kiera: Oh they walked through Hell itself knowing they were gonna be on fire and they still went, because on the other side there was something with bright blue eyes going ‘Help me, help me!’ Or brown eyes. Or whatever the color or—I don’t know, cute little squirmy slimy things that anybody else would have left alone—and they still walked into it bright-eyed and bushy tailed goin’, ‘We’re gonna save you!’

Kiera: I don’t think you understand how painful it is being with them. And how you can use this innocence to a level that you don’t understand.

Kiera: I mean, you think Joshua is a very very dangerous person or repressed? He’s not. He’s the driver of the goody-goodies. You don’t understand how much I enjoy shootin’ people. I have not shot anybody! You can ask your Reader and find out I have literally tamped down my own bellicose personality to make him happy. And he is the worst. ‘We can’t do that. We gotta save them. It’s a kinder gentler world. What if we make our own little mark on it?’ It’s like they walk around with little hearts and butterflies and bunnies shootin’ outa their butt. It’s horrifying.

Kiera: No, you wanna be sad because if they feel like there’s an ounce of humanity in you, they’re gonna like you. If there’s somethin’ they can attach a reason to like you despite the fact that you have just totally gutted them like a fish, they will like you for it. Because there’s ‘good’ in you.

Kiera: Well I offered you guys up.
Joshua: (wry) I’m shocked.

Part 4:
Kiera: She might have a mission for us. An act of kindness. Y’all go for the acts of kindness.
Nika: The Operative heard that and she showed zero interest.
Kiera: Yeah, but you probably didn’t give the full truth of what you guys are. Big giant soppy hearts. All she’s gotta do is give you a reason to go and y’all’ll go. You’re talkin about it with her like a business person, that you have something dangerous that you gotta do that y’all’re going to say no to. But if it was like … I don’t know … cute bunnies somewhere that needed to be saved, y’all will go.
Nika: What?

(Rina starts to laugh. She slides to the floor and just dies.)
Nika: I’m not saving bunnies.
Joshua: Why not?
Kiera: See?
Joshua: Why not?
Kiera: You’re gonna be savin’ bunnies cuz they like bunnies, don’t you?
Joshua: Well, yeah, I like bunnies.
Kiera: See?
Rina: (gasping) Especially with mushrooms on the side, yeah. (dies some more)

Nika: So, which part of the conversation ‘we are not the only crew leaving’ did you miss?

SNIPPETS FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

Back in our cell, Joshua and Rina are standing under the vent, stretching their ears to listen to Nika’s progress. They hear her slither through the vent and the sounds fade as their captain crawls too far away to hear. The sound of metal against metal, however, carries to them and Joshua eyes his fiancée with worry.

Joshua: I can’t ask someone to shoot someone else. It’s just not my thing.
Rina: You can always ask me anything, dear.

HOW TO SPEAK BASQUE

Egizu beti on = Ee-geh-zoo bet-ty on = Always do the right thing.

HOW TO SPEAK RUSSIAN

Part 3:
maskirovka = маскировка = mahss-skee-rove-kah = a term for a concept that encompasses many elements simultaneously, including disguise, camouflage, and disinformation.
Sound clip Read more here.
Bozhe moi = Боже мой = boh - zhuh moy = Oh, my God! -or- My God Sound clip

Part 4:
Bozhe moi = Боже мой = boh - zhuh moy = Oh, my God! -or- My God! Sound clip

Part 5:
Bozhe moi = Боже мой = boh - zhuh moy = Oh, my God! -or- My God! Sound clip

HOW TO SPEAK CHINESE

Part 1:
Mǔgǒu = 母狗 = moo gow = bitch Sound clip

Part 2:
gǒu shǐ = 狗屎 = gow shih = dog shit Sound clip

Part 4:
Dong le mah =懂了嗎 = dong leh mah = Understand you Sound clip
Dong le mah? =懂了嗎? = dong leh mah? = Got it? Sound clip
xīnlǐ mǔgǒu = 心理母狗 = shin-lee moo-gow = psycho bitch Sound clip

Part 5:
tā mā de = 他媽的 = tah mah duh = fucking Sound clip
cào nĭ mā = 操你妈 = tsow nee mah = fuck your mother Sound clip (click in individual characters, then the arrow button to hear them)
'sāncì de zǔzhòu = 三次的詛咒 = sahn-sih duh zoo-zchow = thrice-cursed Sound clip

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