Non Sentient Aliens in Firefly

POSTED BY: JaynezTown
UPDATED: Sunday, August 2, 2026 02:33
VIEWED: 6250
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JAYNEZTOWN

Monday, August 23, 2004 12:20 AM

yep, those big green aliens with their bulging dark eyes would certainly go against the mood and style of firefly

FORRESTWOLF

Monday, August 23, 2004 12:49 AM

It's actually a very refreshing change to have a show where there's NO native life. The fact that all animals in Firefly were brought by humans is fascinating. Does that mean no non-domesticated predators? What about insects?

In a recent Neverwinter Nights Firefly game, a non-Firefly-fan player (soon to be a fan, I hope) asked a non-player character if there were any coyotes out in the wilds of the planet they were on...the NPC seemed puzzled - 'Coyote? What's that? Now RATS we've got...'

- Forrestwolf

JAYNEZTOWN

Saturday, September 30, 2023 6:03 PM

Why finding alien life in Universe is now 'only a matter of time'

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66950930

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Sunday, October 1, 2023 1:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by StarPilotGrainger:
I think, if Firefly continued as a series, we may have eventually seen some kind of alien life form that was native to one of the planets in the system... but I think it would have been sometime small, like plants at most, maybe something like moss or fungus. Certainly no animals, and I'd doubt it'd have anything to do with Reavers (unless Joss wanted to go all the way and do real aliens and his whole 'we're the only intelligent life in the solar system' bit was a smokescreen), but it might have been the sort of thing that was an aspect of a job (Say, there's a moss that doesn't grow anymore after terraforming, but occasionally caches are discovered in caves and it's very valuable). Or maybe combine it with the overarching River arc and discover that an alien plant heightens psychic ability and the whole reason for the program River was in was to see how to exploit it into a useful form.. maybe, for example, usage killed people with amygdalas. ;)

Anyway, just random speculation, but in general, yeah, I don't think we'd see any alien life more complex than plants.

Star Pilot Grainger
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down."
LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/newnumber6
http://www.unreachablestar.net

I don't know how native life there would have survived terraforming. That sounds unlikely.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, October 2, 2023 2:06 PM

I always said that Joss didn't rip off other works that came before him, but he was obviously extremely heavily influenced by them when he made Firefly. The Great Explosion and The Legacy of Heorot being my two main examples, and even The Deathworld Trilogy to a lesser extent.

The Great Explosion (How it all began... and then how the Government eventually started going around to all the colonies to take the land they conquered from the colonists after all the hard work had already been done)

Quote:
The Blieder drive, a faster-than-light drive system, has permitted the population of Earth to colonize the galaxy. Each planet has become home for a particular social group. Four hundred years after the diaspora (the "Great Explosion" of the title), a spaceship from Earth visits three of the planets, the first steps to unifying the galaxy under a new Empire. The ship contains two thousand Terrans including many pompous officials, an army of bureaucrats, a military force and the ship's crew, including some misfits. Things do not go entirely as hoped, as the incompetent military authoritarians of the ship encounter three very different societies.

Legacy of Heorot (In between the events of part one and part of The Great Explosion... Around the same time that Firefly happened):

Quote:
Two hundred colonists arrive on Avalon, having made the 100-year journey from Earth in suspended animation on the starship Geographic. The colonists, selected for their outstanding physical and mental acuity, make a terrible discovery: the suspended animation has damaged their intellect and reasoning skills. Some are only mildly afflicted, while others have serious intellectual disabilities; eight cannot be reanimated at all.

The colonists build a settlement on an isolated island, and begin growing crops and stocking the nearby waters with terrestrial species to complement the samlon, a local aquatic species. The colonists become overconfident in their security, to the frustration of expedition security officer (and former soldier) Cadmann Weyland. When unsettling events begin to happen – missing animals, fences torn down – the colonists' impaired minds prevent them from properly analyzing the situation. Weyland is suspected of sabotage to further his agenda of building up defenses. He is drugged and restrained, when a monster attacks the settlement, killing ten colonists.

The Deathworld Trilogy (A much more action-packed setting than any of the Firefly planets, likely in the distant future from the Firefly timeline):

Quote:
A legendary science fiction story, this trilogy, brought back into print in one single volume, presents hero Jason dinAlt as he discovers three separate planets. dinAlt finds excitement and intrigue as he investigates Pyrrus, a strange place where all the beasts, plants, and natural elements are out to destroy man; the unknown second planet, where every man has to kill other men or live as a slave; and Felicity, where creatures are bred for thousands of years for a single deadly purpose.

Having read all of these books years before I ever saw Firefly, I always felt that all 4 of them were in the same universe, with Firefly, Legacy of Heorot and Deathworld only being possible because of the events of Part 1 of The Great Explosion.

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

JAYNEZTOWN

Saturday, October 7, 2023 6:00 AM

Elon Musk isn't convinced there are aliens out there: 'We're the aliens'

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-says-whether-he-thinks-alien
s-exist-spacex-2023-10