What I would like to know is what was on Book's ID card! A lot of people think he was a very senior Alliance officer during the war (which is contrary to my headcanon that he can't ever tell Mal that actually Book was a Browncoat general who was involved in deciding not to send air support to Serenity Valley). But I saw an interesting theory that the VIP card wasn't because of anything Book did personally, but who he was--the equivalent of being a member of the British royal family, for example.

I consider the comics a separate canon so I'm not taking the Book comic into account.