The assassins created by the Academy have a variety of behavioral triggers programmed into them. Examples that we saw with River Tam in the Serenity movie are the "sleep" command that Simon uses on her and her combat reaction to the subliminal message in the commercial. The assassins have some commands programmed into them to make them easier to handle and control, there are also some self-preservation situational commands. For example, putting them into a life or death situation may trigger their combat reflexes in which case they will try to kill any enemy or anyone else that is possibly a threat and not a clear ally. Resisting these programmed commands is a Heroic Willpower+Discipline/Mental Resistance roll.
There is no list of what all these commands are, which allows me as gamemaster to add new ones as seem appropriate to the story.
