Fictional Background
Serenity first appeared in the pilot episode of Joss Whedon's Firefly, which is set in the year 2517, in a star system humanity migrated to after using all of Earth's resources. She is the property of Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a former sergeant who served on the losing side of a civil war that ended six years before the series began. Mal acquires Serenity from a used spaceship yard after the war (as depicted in flashbacks during "Out of Gas"), intending to hire a small crew and take various jobs to support himself and wartime comrade Corporal Zoe Alleyne, while keeping out of the way of the Alliance, the multi-planetary government they were fighting against. Other flashbacks in "Out of Gas" show how the rest of the main crew came to join the ship; pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne (Alan Tudyk), engineer Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite), and mercenary Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), as well as Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin), a courtesan who hires out one of Serenity’s two shuttlecraft. At the start of the series, the episode "Serenity" depicts the arrival of the other three members of the ensemble cast as passengers aboard the ship: the preacher (or shepherd) Derrial Book (Ron Glass), the fugitive doctor Simon Tam (Sean Maher), and his psychic and psychotic sister River (Summer Glau).
In the original pilot episode, "Serenity", Serenity is described as a Firefly-class transport ship by an Alliance starship crew, while Shepherd Book identifies her as an "aught three" model, with both parties implying that the class is an old design. In the episode "The Train Job", which was created as a replacement pilot episode when Fox decided that the original pilot was not good enough to be aired, River identifies the ship as a "Midbulk transport, standard radion-accelerator core, classcode 03-K64, Firefly". Although not stated in the aired episodes, the ship's name comes from the Battle of Serenity Valley, the final action of the civil war, where Mal and Zoe fought. The revelation was made in a deleted scene from the episode "Serenity", where Zoe tells Simon that "Once you've been in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn to live there." The Serenity Valley connection is mentioned in the episode "Bushwhacked", although the reason behind the name is not given. The capabilities of the ship are not elaborated on in aired material, beyond the fact that she is small, unarmed, and defenseless except for her speed and "crybabies": decoy buoys used to mimic other ships (in the episode "Serenity") or Serenity herself (in the film Serenity). In 2007, Geoffrey Mandel, the graphic designer from the film, and Tim Earls, the series illustrator and film set designer, produced an official set of Serenity blueprints, which included technical data for the ship. According to the blueprints, Serenity was laid down in August 2459. The ship is 269 feet (82 m) bow to stern, with a 170 feet (52 m) beam, and stands 79 feet (24 m) high when landed. Serenity has a curb weight of 282,500 pounds (128,100 kg), can carry 164,900 pounds (74,800 kg) of cargo and 18 passengers, can accelerate at 4.2 g, and has a range of 440 astronomical units when carrying minimal cargo.
Serenity and ships of her type are constantly talked down; in various episodes, Serenity is referred to as a "flying piece of go se (Mandarin Chinese for crap)", "luh-suh (garbage)", or "junk". However, in the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds", a mechanic from a starship chop shop claims that while the ship is a load of worthless parts and isn't as attractive as other vessels, the value of a Firefly-class ship comes from its durability and ease of repair. Kaylee regularly defends the reputation of the ship, while Whedon regards Serenity as the tenth character of the series, as the relationships between the characters and the ship and how the audience reacts to the ship is as important as the relationships between and the reactions to the other main characters.
Read more about this topic: Serenity (Firefly Vessel)
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