| Silas | |
|---|---|
| Biographical information | |
| Gender |
Male |
| Hair color |
Dark |
| Statistics | |
| Affiliation |
The Academy |
| Behind the scenes | |
Silas is an incredibly powerful human, and the first student of The Academy.
He became violent against those who experimented on him and they deemed him to be a failure. He was placed in a cryogenic chamber on board the Generation Ship, Sun Tzu that was hidden in orbit around a cold, desolate, nameless planet far beyond the rim, billions of miles away from the Blue Sun.
Prior to being imprisoned, Silas created a map that he knew would someday lead someone to find him. After passing through numerous hands without anyone being able to decipher the map, it eventually fell into Malcolm Reynolds' hands after he won it gambling.
River Tam was able to read the map and knew that it would lead to the legendary Silas, who she hoped would help her to understand herself as they were the same. She tells Simon that, though he is her brother, Silas is her blood. Under River's directions, the Serenity was able to find the Sun Tzu, and Silas was finally awakened.
Receiving an alert that Silas was awake, two female Hands of Blue who had been tasked with ensuring Silas never escaped, immediately head for the Sun Tzu in a destroyer to recover him and put him back to sleep.
At first, River was eager to see Silas, but after the Alliance invaded the Sun Tzu and Silas began systematically and brutally killing everyone, including one of the Hands of Blue, she realized that he was dangerous and would just as likely murder the crew as well. River became afraid of him and regretted waking him.
Silas became obsessed with River, believing that, united, the two of them would be unstoppable. After flying a shuttle into one of the destroyer's boosters, causing an explosion, the destroyer collided with the Sun Tzu and sent both ships into a chaotically spinning decaying orbit toward the barren planet's surface.
Silas attempted to follow River and her crew as they vacated the doomed Sun Tzu, but Mal shot him in the shoulder and then River kicked him back into the ship while they vented out of the airlock. Silas was enraged as he watched her leave through a viewing window in the airlock door.
The surviving Hands of Blue, understanding that, if Silas cannot be contained, then he must be destroyed, takes control of the Sun Tzu and flies it into the rings of rock and ice around the planet. The Sun Tzu is pulverized in seconds by thousands of impacts into its compromised hull. After the ancient ship becomes indistinguishable from the other debris that made up the planetary rings, River tells the crew over the comm that Silas had joined the stars – a comment that unsettled Mal, as he felt that it sounded more like the beginning of something than an ending.