Simon Tam [Firefly] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pompous_today) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
doublestars2012-03-08 01:22 pm
pompous_today) wrote in doublestars2012-03-08 01:22 pm
Entry tags:
OOC: abaxcity application for Simon Tam
player information.
name: Shurimon
are you over 18?: Yes, I'm 26.
personal dw:shurimon, but I never use it.
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: E-mail: spdbridge03 [at] gmail dot com
AIM: Shuripus
Plurk:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
shurimon
characters in abax: N/A
in character information.
series: Firefly
name: Simon Tam
age: 27
sex: Male
race: Human
weight: 170 lb.
height: 5'10"
[OPTIONAL] cause of death: N/A
canon point: Post-movie
previous cr: N/A
history: It is the year 2517. Earth as we know it has long ago been abandoned, and is simply called "Earth-that-was", all of its history now confined to school lessons and textbooks. Humans have been colonizing other planets and making them suitable for habitation for centuries, and a central government, the Alliance, rules over them all.
Simon Tam seemed to have it all. Born to wealthy high-society parents and blessed with a high amount of intelligence, he had a happy childhood and a close relationship with his younger sister, River. As he grew, Simon wished to study medicine, and by the time the series takes place is a successful trauma surgeon on his home planet of Osiris, having graduated in the top three percent of his class. However, he soon chooses to give up his cushy existence for a life on the run from the law.
Around three years before the series began, River was chosen to attend a special school run by the Alliance, known simply as "the Academy". After a few months, though, she stopped communicating with her family except for a series of cryptic, mistake-riddled and sometimes nonsensical letters. Simon and River's parents dismissed these as her playing a childish game; Simon, however, was suspicious, as River was even smarter than he was, and was convinced that the letters were code and she was really crying out for their help. His parents told him to drop it, worried that he'd ruin his career by making accusations with no solid proof, but he wasn't dissuaded. He made several attempts to get information about River, only to end up getting thrown in jail. His angry father paid for his release and accused him of trying to ruin the family, telling him he would not bail him out again; Simon chose to press on, effectively estranging himself from his parents. He finally allied himself with some men in an underground movement who had contacted him and confirmed his fears, posing as an Alliance official wanting to inspect the academy. There, he saw the terrifying truth firsthand- that River had been subjected to a series of intense physical and mental tortures and experiments to try and enhance her psychic abilities and turn her into a human weapon. He thereafter broke her out of the facility, earning both of them the status of fugitives, as the Alliance feared that River knew valuable secrets and wanted her back.
Soon after, Simon was taken to the planet Persephone, with River frozen in suspended animation in a large box he toted with him. He gained passage on the smuggling ship Serenity after being charmed by its mechanic, Kaylee Frye. However, the Captain, Mal Reynolds, became suspicious of him when someone onboard paged a nearby Alliance cruiser after they'd gotten out in space, and he caught Simon in the cargo bay (which the civilian passengers had been forbidden to enter, as Serenity was also smuggling some stolen goods), believing him to be a mole. However, in reality the traitor was Dobson, one of the other passengers picked up from Persephone, who shot Kaylee before being knocked unconscious and restrained. Simon told Mal that they needed to run away from the looming Alliance cruiser, threatening to let Kaylee die from her injury if they didn't. Mal reluctantly agreed, and so Simon treated Kaylee before Mal had him dragged back to the cargo bay and forced open the crate containing River. Simon explained his plight after being accused of transporting her to be a sex slave, and the other passengers and crew were torn over what should be done with the two. After a tense brush with a ship full of Reavers (a group of horrific, cannibalistic and murderous men driven insane with bloodlust) and with Dobson when he escaped and tried to persuade Simon to give his sister up, he secured a place on the ship's crew on the condition that he keep River under control. Mal needed his skills as a doctor, and it was safer for them to be constantly on the move rather than staying in one spot.
Simon had an uneven and sometimes tense relationship with the crew thereafter, as River's ordeal had left her broken- she wandered the ship in a daze, suffered hallucinations and often went into screaming fits of paranoia. Of course, Serenity harboring fugitives was a huge risk as well, a risk that almost got Simon and River caught when the ship was brought in for Alliance inspection after it raided supplies from a transport whose passengers had all been killed by Reavers (fortunately, the two were able to hide by putting on space suits and clinging to the outside of the ship). Nevertheless, Simon was able to develop a good rapport with the Christian preacher Shepherd Book and with Inara Serra, a Companion (professional courtesan), both of whom had a great deal of sympathy for him and assisted in caring for River; gain the sometimes-grudging respect of Mal, his first mate Zoe, and the pilot Wash because of his caring for their injuries; and started to navigate a complicated, budding romance with Kaylee, who was star-struck from their first meeting. By the fifth episode, Mal considered Simon to be part of his "family", and proved his devotion by going out of his way to rescue him and River from a planet where they'd been kidnapped by a group of locals who needed a doctor (and who subsequently tried to burn River as a witch when she read peoples' minds with her powers). The one crewmember Simon had trouble developing a positive relationship with was mercenary Jayne Cobb. Jayne didn't understand why Mal bothered keeping the problematic River on board when they could get rich by turning her in and claiming the reward instead, and wasn't above bullying and playing mean-spirited jokes on Simon.
Jayne's distrust and greed for the hefty bounty on the Tam siblings' heads nearly proved to be their undoing when Simon came up with a plan for the crew to infiltrate a hospital and steal medicine that would fetch a high price on the black market while he used the hospital's brain scanning equipment to get more details on what was done to his sister. Jayne secretly contacted an Alliance official beforehand and arranged for some soldiers to meet the two outside the hospital and arrest them. Simon discovered that River's skull and brain tissue had been cut into multiple times and her amygdala had been taken out, stripping her of the ability to suppress emotions, making her literally feel everything. On the way out, the Alliance troops swarmed- and Jayne got his comeuppance when he, too, was arrested on the charge of aiding and abetting fugitives. They managed to escape and get back to the ship, where Jayne was nearly thrown out the airlock by a livid Mal for his actions. After the crew's next heist, Simon treated Jayne, who had sustained a minor spinal injury, then injected him with a drug that paralyzed him and furiously asked how much he'd been offered to sell him and his sister out. He then swore to never hurt Jayne while he was his patient in spite of their mutual dislike of each other, and told him that for everyone else's sake, they had to get along.
During these events, Simon and Kaylee's romance kept bumping into walls. Simon was very vocal about his dislike of the conditions on Serenity and the life of danger and adventure he'd been thrust into. Kaylee was, in turn, insulted by his disparaging remarks about the ship and crew and was alternately frustrated and confounded by his overly polite nature, assuming this meant he was being snotty and looked down on her for having chosen such a life. However, he explained to her that his manners were his way of showing that he liked and respected her.
River's condition also continued to deteriorate, in spite of the fact that Simon was using various drug treatments to try and restore her to some semblance of normalcy. She became violent at turns, slashing Jayne with a knife to deface the logo on his shirt and pointing a loaded gun, which she had hallucinated was a tree branch, at the others. The others began to correctly speculate about River's conditioning as a human weapon, and nobody seemed to know what to do with her. The crew were then ambushed one night by a bounty hunter named Early, who had been hired to bring River back alive, and Simon alive if reasonable. He first knocked Mal and Shepherd Book unconscious, then threatened Kaylee with rape and left her bound in the engine room before locking the rest of the crew into their quarters and rousing the sleeping Simon, using Kaylee as a hostage to force his cooperation in finding River. However, she was nowhere to be found on the ship... and soon, her voice could be heard over the loudspeakers, taunting Early and making him lose his cool, as well as calming the frightened Kaylee and encouraging her to break loose from her bonds and free the rest of the crew. River was then revealed to have snuck onto Early's ship sometime during the search, and Early himself was pushed out to drift free in space until he died.
Over the next few months, Simon started to butt heads with Mal more and more often and still had trouble being content where he was- trouble made worse when two of the crew's more supportive members, Shepherd Book and Inara, left to stay elsewhere, and when Mal pointedly reminded Simon that the siblings' presence was costing him work and he could just as easily kick them off the ship and leave them to fend for themselves. Things finally came to a head when Mal insisted on taking River along to a bank heist, as she could sense danger coming with her powers, and she, Mal, Zoe and Jayne were very nearly killed by Reavers. Simon got into a fistfight with Mal and agreed to take his sister and leave at their next stop. However, Mal took them back in when River saw an advertisement for, of all things, Fruity Oaty snack bars on television and started attacking patrons in the middle of a bar, knocking almost all of them out before Simon appeared and spoke a Russian phrase that made her immediately fall unconscious. He admitted that he knew more about River than he had first let on, and that she had been conditioned to bring out her psychic powers and turn into an emotionless, completely driven assassin when seeing a certain coded phrase, which had been subliminally embedded in the Fruity Oaty commercial. The Russian phrase he'd spoken was a "safeword" to make her fall asleep and take her out of her killer state of mind. River also whispered the word "Miranda", and seemed to become fixated on it, though she couldn't articulate what it meant, just that it upset her to the point where she begged Simon to shoot her and put her out of her misery.
Mal, when going to visit Inara (who had contacted Serenity under obvious duress), found out that he and his crew were being trailed by an Alliance Operative, a nameless individual that worked in extreme anonymity, who wanted River and was working behind the scenes to try and get her. Mal tried to kill the Operative, but failed against his opponent's body armor and martial arts skills, and he and Inara barely escaped with their lives. Back on Serenity, the crew discovered that Miranda was a planet that had been slated for terraforming at one point, but was now supposedly a dead rock, surrounded by Reavers. They tried seeking asylum with Shepherd Book while making a plan of what to do, only to find that the preacher had been murdered by the Operative's men- along with all of the others who had ever given them shelter in the past.
The crew were forced to flee to Miranda and managed to get unharmed through the massive group of Reavers surrounding it, to discover that not only had the planet been successfully terraformed, it had apparently been home to numerous bustling cities- but all of the inhabitants lay dead of an unknown force. River went into a nearly-catatonic state at this point, screaming that she could hear all of the people, and that they were saying nothing. The gang followed a beacon deep into one of the cities and discovered a crashed ship, containing a recorded message revealing the horrifying truth- the Alliance had been testing a gas called Pax on Miranda, which was supposed to pacify the population and remove peoples' anger, but instead made almost all of the world's inhabitants simply stop doing ANYTHING, including feeding themselves, so they wasted away. The others' anger went out of control, so they became Reavers.
Mal knew that the truth had to be told, so the crew took off to the planet inhabited by Mr. Universe, one of their contacts who had been helping them keep tabs on the Alliance (and who turned out to be a traitor and then was killed by the Operative), intending to use his equipment to broadcast the message to dozens of planets. They took a risky gambit and allowed themselves to be pursued into atmosphere by Reavers, who immediately set upon the small army the Operative had brought with him to intercept them. Wash was killed in a crash landing on the planet when he was speared through the chest, and the remaining crew had to press on without him. Simon, Kaylee, Inara, Jayne, River and Zoe stayed back to cover for Mal while he used Mr. Universe's equipment. While waiting for the inevitable Reaver attack, Simon lamented that he'd spent so much time worrying about River, everything else- including his own wants- had taken a back seat, and told Kaylee his one regret was never advancing their relationship. In the ensuing firefight against the Reavers, things seemed hopeless when they ran short on ammo, Kaylee was taken down by poisonous darts, and Simon received a seemingly-fatal shot to the stomach. River then told Simon that he'd taken care of her for so long, now it was her turn to take care of him- and she unleashed her full human weapon potential, slaughtering every Reaver that came at her with barely any injuries of her own. Mal, meanwhile, successfully subdued the Operative and broadcast the message of the Reavers' origin.
Thereafter, the Operative realized that he had been mistaken and helped the battered crew bury their friends, repair their destroyed ship and take off again, with the Alliance's pursuit of River and Simon seemingly being scaled-back, as the Operative said they were no longer a threat. River took up Wash's position as pilot along with Mal, while Simon stayed on as the ship's medic- and let his attraction to Kaylee finally spill over into physical passion.
personality: Simon Tam is very smart and totally devoted to two roles in his life- being a doctor and being a brother. He loves River, his mentally-damaged sister, so much that he gave up his entire life as he knew it for her. He risked his life, his freedom, and a lucrative career in medicine, as well as estranged himself from his parents, in order to break her out of a facility where she was being held against her will and experimented on. As a result of this, the two of them share a very strong bond. He is always the first to come to her defense when others criticize or misunderstand her, hides what he knows of the true nature of her conditioning as a human weapon in order to give them a chance of staying in one of the few places they can be safe, and supports her no matter what happens to them. Simon is more than willing to give his life in exchange for hers or die alongside her rather than live without her.
However, his strong attachment to his sister is not without its bad points. Simon constantly shoves aside his own wants and desires for River's sake, to the point where it becomes detrimental to his ability to form relationships with others. This is most evident in his developing romance with ship mechanic Kaylee- while it is obvious that he reciprocates her feelings for him, his focus on River prevents them from going very far as a couple until the end of the movie. He also doesn't take much time to try and form bonds with the rest of the crew, aside from the ones who support him and help care for his sister the most (Inara, Kaylee, and Shepherd Book), which leads to a lot of tension between himself and the ship's Captain, Mal. In addition, he is willing to kill, or at least let someone die from their injuries, rather than risk his sister being handed back to the Alliance.
As much as he tries to hide it, the burden of caring for his sister does take its toll on him after a while, and there are signs in the last episode that he is starting to crack under the pressure. For example, when taken captive by a bounty hunter who forces him to help find River, the bounty hunter remarks that River is becoming a problem, and Simon replies that he feels for him.
Due to his upbringing, Simon tries to be well-mannered, clean-cut and well-dressed at all times. This makes some, including his newfound crewmates, perceive him to be a snob, and makes him stand out on the less-civilized border planets. However, he explains in one episode that his manners are all he has left out in the far reaches of space, and being polite to people is how he shows that he respects them. Despite this, he has trouble fitting in with the others. He is not shy about complaining about his lot in life, being a fugitive on the run from the law, when he's used to being respected and having a lot of money. In addition, he often lacks tact when dealing with people on a personal level, having a tendency to speak before he thinks, and believing that the social graces he learned as an upper-class Alliance citizen apply everywhere. He often seems nervous and high-strung when outside the confines of the ship, as well, likely due to a very realistic fear that he and his sister will be found and arrested at any moment.
Simon takes his role as a doctor very seriously. He tries to treat everybody equally when they are his patient, regardless of his personal feelings toward them, and will go out of his way to help someone who is sick or injured, disregarding his own personal safety. He is even willing to move outside his usual duties and comfort zone as a surgeon, including helping deliver a child, to offer his services to those who need them the most.
abilities/powers: Simon has no supernatual abilities, but is an incredibly skilled and gifted doctor. He's a trauma surgeon by trade, but in canon mentioned working in an emergency room and helped deliver a baby in one episode, as well. This means he has an extensive knowledge of the human body and how to diagnose and properly treat injuries.
first person sample: [The man speaking doesn't seem to be aware at first that the device by his side is broadcasting when it clicks on. He appears to have accidentally pressed something with his hand when sitting up. Only the (barely-covered) right side of his body can be seen, however.]
What in the-
[He looks around, confused, before taking careful stock of his appearance- his eyes falling on the toe tag.]
… This had better not be Jayne's doing.
[Simon then finally seems to register the phone lying next to him. He picks it up to examine it, his face finally coming into focus, his expression still full of confusion- before he notices that it seems to be broadcasting. He hesitates for several moments before speaking, this time more clearly.]
If somebody can hear me... please, I need help. I appear to have somehow been mistakenly placed in a morgue, but... as you can see, I am not quite dead, and I have no memory of how or why I was brought here. What facility is this?
third person sample: It was rare when Simon had a moment to himself. Truly to himself, and not when surrounded by the other crew, or by his sister's ever-present reading of his thoughts.
But today, he did. He'd drawn the short straw and was stuck watching the ship while the rest of Serenity's crew- still looking sadly depleted due to its two now-gone members- went to take care of resupplying their food stocks and ammunition and any other chores that needed tending to. That suited Simon just fine. The past year of his life had left him with a lot to unpack and think about, but not many opportunities to do so.
As he wandered the ship, starting in the cargo bay and moving towards the infirmary- his infirmary, he found himself thinking of it that way more and more- he remembered his first day. When he had picked Serenity due to its run-down, disreputable look, thinking it was his best bet to travel incognito. When he had met the 7 people he and his sister were going to begin their new lives as fugitives with. When his eyes had first fallen upon Kaylee, the woman he had fallen in love with, the woman he had, on that first day, threatened to let die if Mal had let the pursuing Alliance arrest him.
"Would I have really done it?" he asked nobody. "...I couldn't. She didn't deserve it." He stopped and looked in on the infirmary, where he had spent many hours treating the crew's many scrapes and slashes and burns and gunshot wounds, and many more hours trying to do something- anything- for his beloved sister. He then moved on, stopping to glance at the passenger dorms, where he and River sometimes slept, sometimes spent nights merely trying to sleep as he cradled her and did his best to make her nightmares go away. Book would visit them sometimes, because River liked his presence, his calmness, his wisdom.
"She's been having nightmares less and less. She's gotten so much better... so much." Up the stairs now to the engine room, though it really belonged to Kaylee. Her hammock, her tools, her rotating engine, the one she loved so much and kept in better order than Simon would have thought possible for a ship that seemed two steps from falling apart at any moment. The engine room where the two had made love for the first time...
Smiling to himself, Simon went on past the crew's quarters. Captain Reynolds, who had openly hated Simon for so long, yet always came back for him, always protected him, and the man he had ended up nearly giving his life for. Zoe, his loyal right hand, who had always seemed not bothered by his presence and even gently teased him a few times. Jayne, who had constantly fought against the presence of Simon and his sister.
"Funny how that stopped once the bounty on our heads was lifted," Simon mused quietly. Through the kitchen, where the crew had eaten many meals together, and Simon thought of having tea with Inara, whose shuttle was nearby. She had always advocated for Simon and River, always cared for them, had grown to love River.
He finally reached the bridge, the seat where Wash had been speared to death. Simon had not witnessed it happening, but the image of the shattered window and the blood-stained pilot's chair would haunt him forever.
Now he was at the foremost point of Serenity. The ship he had spent the last year of his life on. Where so much had changed.
Home.
That one word suddenly sprang to his mind, and he barely stopped to ponder if it was true before it sank into his heart.
Home.
It was home now, and these people he lived and fought and laughed with had become his friends, his protectors. His family. Dysfunctional they undoubtedly were, but Simon realized- admitted to himself for the first time- that he wouldn't have it any other way.
case no: Can be randomized.
name: Shurimon
are you over 18?: Yes, I'm 26.
personal dw:
shurimon, but I never use it.email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: E-mail: spdbridge03 [at] gmail dot com
AIM: Shuripus
Plurk:
characters in abax: N/A
in character information.
series: Firefly
name: Simon Tam
age: 27
sex: Male
race: Human
weight: 170 lb.
height: 5'10"
[OPTIONAL] cause of death: N/A
canon point: Post-movie
previous cr: N/A
history: It is the year 2517. Earth as we know it has long ago been abandoned, and is simply called "Earth-that-was", all of its history now confined to school lessons and textbooks. Humans have been colonizing other planets and making them suitable for habitation for centuries, and a central government, the Alliance, rules over them all.
Simon Tam seemed to have it all. Born to wealthy high-society parents and blessed with a high amount of intelligence, he had a happy childhood and a close relationship with his younger sister, River. As he grew, Simon wished to study medicine, and by the time the series takes place is a successful trauma surgeon on his home planet of Osiris, having graduated in the top three percent of his class. However, he soon chooses to give up his cushy existence for a life on the run from the law.
Around three years before the series began, River was chosen to attend a special school run by the Alliance, known simply as "the Academy". After a few months, though, she stopped communicating with her family except for a series of cryptic, mistake-riddled and sometimes nonsensical letters. Simon and River's parents dismissed these as her playing a childish game; Simon, however, was suspicious, as River was even smarter than he was, and was convinced that the letters were code and she was really crying out for their help. His parents told him to drop it, worried that he'd ruin his career by making accusations with no solid proof, but he wasn't dissuaded. He made several attempts to get information about River, only to end up getting thrown in jail. His angry father paid for his release and accused him of trying to ruin the family, telling him he would not bail him out again; Simon chose to press on, effectively estranging himself from his parents. He finally allied himself with some men in an underground movement who had contacted him and confirmed his fears, posing as an Alliance official wanting to inspect the academy. There, he saw the terrifying truth firsthand- that River had been subjected to a series of intense physical and mental tortures and experiments to try and enhance her psychic abilities and turn her into a human weapon. He thereafter broke her out of the facility, earning both of them the status of fugitives, as the Alliance feared that River knew valuable secrets and wanted her back.
Soon after, Simon was taken to the planet Persephone, with River frozen in suspended animation in a large box he toted with him. He gained passage on the smuggling ship Serenity after being charmed by its mechanic, Kaylee Frye. However, the Captain, Mal Reynolds, became suspicious of him when someone onboard paged a nearby Alliance cruiser after they'd gotten out in space, and he caught Simon in the cargo bay (which the civilian passengers had been forbidden to enter, as Serenity was also smuggling some stolen goods), believing him to be a mole. However, in reality the traitor was Dobson, one of the other passengers picked up from Persephone, who shot Kaylee before being knocked unconscious and restrained. Simon told Mal that they needed to run away from the looming Alliance cruiser, threatening to let Kaylee die from her injury if they didn't. Mal reluctantly agreed, and so Simon treated Kaylee before Mal had him dragged back to the cargo bay and forced open the crate containing River. Simon explained his plight after being accused of transporting her to be a sex slave, and the other passengers and crew were torn over what should be done with the two. After a tense brush with a ship full of Reavers (a group of horrific, cannibalistic and murderous men driven insane with bloodlust) and with Dobson when he escaped and tried to persuade Simon to give his sister up, he secured a place on the ship's crew on the condition that he keep River under control. Mal needed his skills as a doctor, and it was safer for them to be constantly on the move rather than staying in one spot.
Simon had an uneven and sometimes tense relationship with the crew thereafter, as River's ordeal had left her broken- she wandered the ship in a daze, suffered hallucinations and often went into screaming fits of paranoia. Of course, Serenity harboring fugitives was a huge risk as well, a risk that almost got Simon and River caught when the ship was brought in for Alliance inspection after it raided supplies from a transport whose passengers had all been killed by Reavers (fortunately, the two were able to hide by putting on space suits and clinging to the outside of the ship). Nevertheless, Simon was able to develop a good rapport with the Christian preacher Shepherd Book and with Inara Serra, a Companion (professional courtesan), both of whom had a great deal of sympathy for him and assisted in caring for River; gain the sometimes-grudging respect of Mal, his first mate Zoe, and the pilot Wash because of his caring for their injuries; and started to navigate a complicated, budding romance with Kaylee, who was star-struck from their first meeting. By the fifth episode, Mal considered Simon to be part of his "family", and proved his devotion by going out of his way to rescue him and River from a planet where they'd been kidnapped by a group of locals who needed a doctor (and who subsequently tried to burn River as a witch when she read peoples' minds with her powers). The one crewmember Simon had trouble developing a positive relationship with was mercenary Jayne Cobb. Jayne didn't understand why Mal bothered keeping the problematic River on board when they could get rich by turning her in and claiming the reward instead, and wasn't above bullying and playing mean-spirited jokes on Simon.
Jayne's distrust and greed for the hefty bounty on the Tam siblings' heads nearly proved to be their undoing when Simon came up with a plan for the crew to infiltrate a hospital and steal medicine that would fetch a high price on the black market while he used the hospital's brain scanning equipment to get more details on what was done to his sister. Jayne secretly contacted an Alliance official beforehand and arranged for some soldiers to meet the two outside the hospital and arrest them. Simon discovered that River's skull and brain tissue had been cut into multiple times and her amygdala had been taken out, stripping her of the ability to suppress emotions, making her literally feel everything. On the way out, the Alliance troops swarmed- and Jayne got his comeuppance when he, too, was arrested on the charge of aiding and abetting fugitives. They managed to escape and get back to the ship, where Jayne was nearly thrown out the airlock by a livid Mal for his actions. After the crew's next heist, Simon treated Jayne, who had sustained a minor spinal injury, then injected him with a drug that paralyzed him and furiously asked how much he'd been offered to sell him and his sister out. He then swore to never hurt Jayne while he was his patient in spite of their mutual dislike of each other, and told him that for everyone else's sake, they had to get along.
During these events, Simon and Kaylee's romance kept bumping into walls. Simon was very vocal about his dislike of the conditions on Serenity and the life of danger and adventure he'd been thrust into. Kaylee was, in turn, insulted by his disparaging remarks about the ship and crew and was alternately frustrated and confounded by his overly polite nature, assuming this meant he was being snotty and looked down on her for having chosen such a life. However, he explained to her that his manners were his way of showing that he liked and respected her.
River's condition also continued to deteriorate, in spite of the fact that Simon was using various drug treatments to try and restore her to some semblance of normalcy. She became violent at turns, slashing Jayne with a knife to deface the logo on his shirt and pointing a loaded gun, which she had hallucinated was a tree branch, at the others. The others began to correctly speculate about River's conditioning as a human weapon, and nobody seemed to know what to do with her. The crew were then ambushed one night by a bounty hunter named Early, who had been hired to bring River back alive, and Simon alive if reasonable. He first knocked Mal and Shepherd Book unconscious, then threatened Kaylee with rape and left her bound in the engine room before locking the rest of the crew into their quarters and rousing the sleeping Simon, using Kaylee as a hostage to force his cooperation in finding River. However, she was nowhere to be found on the ship... and soon, her voice could be heard over the loudspeakers, taunting Early and making him lose his cool, as well as calming the frightened Kaylee and encouraging her to break loose from her bonds and free the rest of the crew. River was then revealed to have snuck onto Early's ship sometime during the search, and Early himself was pushed out to drift free in space until he died.
Over the next few months, Simon started to butt heads with Mal more and more often and still had trouble being content where he was- trouble made worse when two of the crew's more supportive members, Shepherd Book and Inara, left to stay elsewhere, and when Mal pointedly reminded Simon that the siblings' presence was costing him work and he could just as easily kick them off the ship and leave them to fend for themselves. Things finally came to a head when Mal insisted on taking River along to a bank heist, as she could sense danger coming with her powers, and she, Mal, Zoe and Jayne were very nearly killed by Reavers. Simon got into a fistfight with Mal and agreed to take his sister and leave at their next stop. However, Mal took them back in when River saw an advertisement for, of all things, Fruity Oaty snack bars on television and started attacking patrons in the middle of a bar, knocking almost all of them out before Simon appeared and spoke a Russian phrase that made her immediately fall unconscious. He admitted that he knew more about River than he had first let on, and that she had been conditioned to bring out her psychic powers and turn into an emotionless, completely driven assassin when seeing a certain coded phrase, which had been subliminally embedded in the Fruity Oaty commercial. The Russian phrase he'd spoken was a "safeword" to make her fall asleep and take her out of her killer state of mind. River also whispered the word "Miranda", and seemed to become fixated on it, though she couldn't articulate what it meant, just that it upset her to the point where she begged Simon to shoot her and put her out of her misery.
Mal, when going to visit Inara (who had contacted Serenity under obvious duress), found out that he and his crew were being trailed by an Alliance Operative, a nameless individual that worked in extreme anonymity, who wanted River and was working behind the scenes to try and get her. Mal tried to kill the Operative, but failed against his opponent's body armor and martial arts skills, and he and Inara barely escaped with their lives. Back on Serenity, the crew discovered that Miranda was a planet that had been slated for terraforming at one point, but was now supposedly a dead rock, surrounded by Reavers. They tried seeking asylum with Shepherd Book while making a plan of what to do, only to find that the preacher had been murdered by the Operative's men- along with all of the others who had ever given them shelter in the past.
The crew were forced to flee to Miranda and managed to get unharmed through the massive group of Reavers surrounding it, to discover that not only had the planet been successfully terraformed, it had apparently been home to numerous bustling cities- but all of the inhabitants lay dead of an unknown force. River went into a nearly-catatonic state at this point, screaming that she could hear all of the people, and that they were saying nothing. The gang followed a beacon deep into one of the cities and discovered a crashed ship, containing a recorded message revealing the horrifying truth- the Alliance had been testing a gas called Pax on Miranda, which was supposed to pacify the population and remove peoples' anger, but instead made almost all of the world's inhabitants simply stop doing ANYTHING, including feeding themselves, so they wasted away. The others' anger went out of control, so they became Reavers.
Mal knew that the truth had to be told, so the crew took off to the planet inhabited by Mr. Universe, one of their contacts who had been helping them keep tabs on the Alliance (and who turned out to be a traitor and then was killed by the Operative), intending to use his equipment to broadcast the message to dozens of planets. They took a risky gambit and allowed themselves to be pursued into atmosphere by Reavers, who immediately set upon the small army the Operative had brought with him to intercept them. Wash was killed in a crash landing on the planet when he was speared through the chest, and the remaining crew had to press on without him. Simon, Kaylee, Inara, Jayne, River and Zoe stayed back to cover for Mal while he used Mr. Universe's equipment. While waiting for the inevitable Reaver attack, Simon lamented that he'd spent so much time worrying about River, everything else- including his own wants- had taken a back seat, and told Kaylee his one regret was never advancing their relationship. In the ensuing firefight against the Reavers, things seemed hopeless when they ran short on ammo, Kaylee was taken down by poisonous darts, and Simon received a seemingly-fatal shot to the stomach. River then told Simon that he'd taken care of her for so long, now it was her turn to take care of him- and she unleashed her full human weapon potential, slaughtering every Reaver that came at her with barely any injuries of her own. Mal, meanwhile, successfully subdued the Operative and broadcast the message of the Reavers' origin.
Thereafter, the Operative realized that he had been mistaken and helped the battered crew bury their friends, repair their destroyed ship and take off again, with the Alliance's pursuit of River and Simon seemingly being scaled-back, as the Operative said they were no longer a threat. River took up Wash's position as pilot along with Mal, while Simon stayed on as the ship's medic- and let his attraction to Kaylee finally spill over into physical passion.
personality: Simon Tam is very smart and totally devoted to two roles in his life- being a doctor and being a brother. He loves River, his mentally-damaged sister, so much that he gave up his entire life as he knew it for her. He risked his life, his freedom, and a lucrative career in medicine, as well as estranged himself from his parents, in order to break her out of a facility where she was being held against her will and experimented on. As a result of this, the two of them share a very strong bond. He is always the first to come to her defense when others criticize or misunderstand her, hides what he knows of the true nature of her conditioning as a human weapon in order to give them a chance of staying in one of the few places they can be safe, and supports her no matter what happens to them. Simon is more than willing to give his life in exchange for hers or die alongside her rather than live without her.
However, his strong attachment to his sister is not without its bad points. Simon constantly shoves aside his own wants and desires for River's sake, to the point where it becomes detrimental to his ability to form relationships with others. This is most evident in his developing romance with ship mechanic Kaylee- while it is obvious that he reciprocates her feelings for him, his focus on River prevents them from going very far as a couple until the end of the movie. He also doesn't take much time to try and form bonds with the rest of the crew, aside from the ones who support him and help care for his sister the most (Inara, Kaylee, and Shepherd Book), which leads to a lot of tension between himself and the ship's Captain, Mal. In addition, he is willing to kill, or at least let someone die from their injuries, rather than risk his sister being handed back to the Alliance.
As much as he tries to hide it, the burden of caring for his sister does take its toll on him after a while, and there are signs in the last episode that he is starting to crack under the pressure. For example, when taken captive by a bounty hunter who forces him to help find River, the bounty hunter remarks that River is becoming a problem, and Simon replies that he feels for him.
Due to his upbringing, Simon tries to be well-mannered, clean-cut and well-dressed at all times. This makes some, including his newfound crewmates, perceive him to be a snob, and makes him stand out on the less-civilized border planets. However, he explains in one episode that his manners are all he has left out in the far reaches of space, and being polite to people is how he shows that he respects them. Despite this, he has trouble fitting in with the others. He is not shy about complaining about his lot in life, being a fugitive on the run from the law, when he's used to being respected and having a lot of money. In addition, he often lacks tact when dealing with people on a personal level, having a tendency to speak before he thinks, and believing that the social graces he learned as an upper-class Alliance citizen apply everywhere. He often seems nervous and high-strung when outside the confines of the ship, as well, likely due to a very realistic fear that he and his sister will be found and arrested at any moment.
Simon takes his role as a doctor very seriously. He tries to treat everybody equally when they are his patient, regardless of his personal feelings toward them, and will go out of his way to help someone who is sick or injured, disregarding his own personal safety. He is even willing to move outside his usual duties and comfort zone as a surgeon, including helping deliver a child, to offer his services to those who need them the most.
abilities/powers: Simon has no supernatual abilities, but is an incredibly skilled and gifted doctor. He's a trauma surgeon by trade, but in canon mentioned working in an emergency room and helped deliver a baby in one episode, as well. This means he has an extensive knowledge of the human body and how to diagnose and properly treat injuries.
first person sample: [The man speaking doesn't seem to be aware at first that the device by his side is broadcasting when it clicks on. He appears to have accidentally pressed something with his hand when sitting up. Only the (barely-covered) right side of his body can be seen, however.]
What in the-
[He looks around, confused, before taking careful stock of his appearance- his eyes falling on the toe tag.]
… This had better not be Jayne's doing.
[Simon then finally seems to register the phone lying next to him. He picks it up to examine it, his face finally coming into focus, his expression still full of confusion- before he notices that it seems to be broadcasting. He hesitates for several moments before speaking, this time more clearly.]
If somebody can hear me... please, I need help. I appear to have somehow been mistakenly placed in a morgue, but... as you can see, I am not quite dead, and I have no memory of how or why I was brought here. What facility is this?
third person sample: It was rare when Simon had a moment to himself. Truly to himself, and not when surrounded by the other crew, or by his sister's ever-present reading of his thoughts.
But today, he did. He'd drawn the short straw and was stuck watching the ship while the rest of Serenity's crew- still looking sadly depleted due to its two now-gone members- went to take care of resupplying their food stocks and ammunition and any other chores that needed tending to. That suited Simon just fine. The past year of his life had left him with a lot to unpack and think about, but not many opportunities to do so.
As he wandered the ship, starting in the cargo bay and moving towards the infirmary- his infirmary, he found himself thinking of it that way more and more- he remembered his first day. When he had picked Serenity due to its run-down, disreputable look, thinking it was his best bet to travel incognito. When he had met the 7 people he and his sister were going to begin their new lives as fugitives with. When his eyes had first fallen upon Kaylee, the woman he had fallen in love with, the woman he had, on that first day, threatened to let die if Mal had let the pursuing Alliance arrest him.
"Would I have really done it?" he asked nobody. "...I couldn't. She didn't deserve it." He stopped and looked in on the infirmary, where he had spent many hours treating the crew's many scrapes and slashes and burns and gunshot wounds, and many more hours trying to do something- anything- for his beloved sister. He then moved on, stopping to glance at the passenger dorms, where he and River sometimes slept, sometimes spent nights merely trying to sleep as he cradled her and did his best to make her nightmares go away. Book would visit them sometimes, because River liked his presence, his calmness, his wisdom.
"She's been having nightmares less and less. She's gotten so much better... so much." Up the stairs now to the engine room, though it really belonged to Kaylee. Her hammock, her tools, her rotating engine, the one she loved so much and kept in better order than Simon would have thought possible for a ship that seemed two steps from falling apart at any moment. The engine room where the two had made love for the first time...
Smiling to himself, Simon went on past the crew's quarters. Captain Reynolds, who had openly hated Simon for so long, yet always came back for him, always protected him, and the man he had ended up nearly giving his life for. Zoe, his loyal right hand, who had always seemed not bothered by his presence and even gently teased him a few times. Jayne, who had constantly fought against the presence of Simon and his sister.
"Funny how that stopped once the bounty on our heads was lifted," Simon mused quietly. Through the kitchen, where the crew had eaten many meals together, and Simon thought of having tea with Inara, whose shuttle was nearby. She had always advocated for Simon and River, always cared for them, had grown to love River.
He finally reached the bridge, the seat where Wash had been speared to death. Simon had not witnessed it happening, but the image of the shattered window and the blood-stained pilot's chair would haunt him forever.
Now he was at the foremost point of Serenity. The ship he had spent the last year of his life on. Where so much had changed.
Home.
That one word suddenly sprang to his mind, and he barely stopped to ponder if it was true before it sank into his heart.
Home.
It was home now, and these people he lived and fought and laughed with had become his friends, his protectors. His family. Dysfunctional they undoubtedly were, but Simon realized- admitted to himself for the first time- that he wouldn't have it any other way.
case no: Can be randomized.