RIVER: "Mal. Bad. In Latin." TheTrainJob
Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Firefly ship named {{SerenityTheShip}} Serenity? was actually a sargeant during the war. {{Zoe}} served with him. Known by the abbreviated "Mal" by his crew, he led the last remnants of an Independent rebellion against the Alliance about a decade before the series' present day (five hundred years in the future to you and me). This final stand rebellion occurred in a valley called Serenity on the planet Hera. The independent faction held Alliance forces at bay for almost two months. The Alliance eventually overwhelmed the Independent rebellion due to superior numbers, in what has historically come to be known as "Unification Day" or "U-Day" to those who actually celebrate it. Mal tends to celebrate it by going to any sleazy bar in the 'verse and picking a fight with the first Alliance patriot to open his mouth.
"May have been on the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
Rather than being captured by the Alliance, branded a traitor, and sentenced to death, a worse fate befell Mal. He was left ignored by both the Alliance and the politicos that claimed to represent the Independents. A surrender was negotiated without his input, and he and Zoe were left to bury their dead and then try to find their place in a universe too big to make one's mark in and too small to properly hide. Eventually Mal purchased a Firefly cargo spacecraft, and with Zoe as his first officer, they entered into smuggling practices and other relatively unscrupulous behavior; something Mal jokingly refers to as "our perfectly legitimate business enterprises."
Mal has a twisted but relatively consistent sense of right and wrong. He wants to see things as black and white but he knows deep down they are not. Tailored from the same cloth as such legends as Sir Robin of Lochsley or the Dread Pirate Roberts, Captain Malcolm Reynolds fancies himself as a criminal mastermind, stealing from the rich and selling to the poor, dancing between the top-heavy Alliance and less valorous schisms of the interspatial underworld, while trying to retain a soul that doesn't go to that special hell reserved for people who talk in movie theaters or cancel television shows before their time. Mal behaves as if he's the intellectual and moral superior to both extremes, and therefore makes very few friends among anyone. In fact he tends to tick off pretty much anyone who comes within earshot, even those closest to him. Despite this holier than thou attitude, he's got no time to find religion. He once told ShepherdBook that "you're welcome on my boat, God ain't."
We learn from the episode OurMrsReynolds that he comes from humble agricultural beginnings, born on a moon called Shadow. His mother raised him on a farm along with forty other hired hands and assorted livestock. We don't know much more than that because even among his crew, he rarely talks about his life before the war, assumedly because it's far too painful -- the war cost him his innocence and everything he had up until that time held dear.
Malcolm Reynolds is played by NathanFillion