Why is Firefly so different?

POSTED BY: Randy
UPDATED: Sunday, February 16, 2003 04:30
VIEWED: 12352
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RANDY

Thursday, February 13, 2003 4:42 PM

Wow, Drakon, you blow me away! How do you know so much?! You don't have to answer...just a rhetorical question. I think I need to go back to school. I'm not worthy of these discussions...

"Hell, I don't know! If I wanted schoolin', I'd'a gone ta school" - Jayne

btw, I think I finally have the answer to the galaxy/solar system debate. When Book does the intro, he says, "After the earth was used up, we found A NEW SOLAR SYSTEM and hundreds of new earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed The Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule."

Here, Book is very specific - "A new solar system" versus Mal's nebulous "A WHOLE new galaxy". So it sounds like a whoppin' big solar system if it has hundreds of planets. Hence "central planets" makes a bit more sense versus if it were a galaxy (though a galaxy does have a "center").

What do you think?

"...morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with" - Mal

DRAKON

Thursday, February 13, 2003 5:57 PM

Hmmm, long story.

I am a space buff, born between Yuri Gargarin's and Alan Shepard's first space flight. I remember waking up in the wee hours of the morning and watching Neil Armstrong's "small step for Man" I read a lot of science fiction, but a lot of science fact as well. Heck, I wanted to go ever since I was a tiny thing.

My needing glasses prevented that, and I sat around and watched as we did not go back to the moon, did not push onward to Mars, did not really go anywhere since 1972, except around and around this one planet.

Why? Why had the promises of the 1960's puttered and all but fizzled out. I thought about it and came up with an answer.

There is no place to go and no way to get there.

The moon is an airless rock. Venus makes Hell look chilly, Mars is all but frozen. The outer planets are even worse, and anywhere we go in this solar system means having to take so much equipment and supplies along, have to rebuild a small version of the earth, that it is a bit expensive.

The nearest stars are too far away, and even if we could get there, it would mean the crew would essentially be returning so far into the future that they would be returning to an alien world.

At least that is the perception as of about 7 years ago.

I read, I researched, looked stuff up. Came across the workds of Kastings, Weatherall, and Bennest among others that showed that despite the fact that our nearest neighbors are a binary (and a half) star system, that does not prevent earth like planets.

(I say binary and a half, because Proxima was only discovered about 1910, and there is not enough orbital data to determine whether it is in orbit, or simply passing through. One of the many things I picked up.)

I also found out about Alcuiberra's paper, which I suspect was written as a lark, but the theory is still sound. It has stirred up a debate in the science community, and forced me to learn more about General Relativity.

(God, the math is a bear and I think I hurt my brain a couple times. And I can't say I got a real good handle on all of it. But it was worth it.)

In short, (too late) I was able to convince myself the standard perception is wrong. There is a really good chance (better than 50%) that there are earth like planets around our nearest neighbor. That General Relativity does not exclude FTL travel, and there are hints that it is possible.

So basically, I read a lot. Haunted libraries, and the various science paper archives. In some cases, actually e-mailed some of the writers of those papers. Nothing nobody else couldn't do. I got the same mark one mod one brain that you or anyone else has. I just may be more nuts on this particular subject :)

I still don't think you can find more than about 3 habital planets in any solar system. Even with terriforming. A planet needs to be in what is called the "habitablity zone" which is determined by the temperature of the star. Temperature is determined by mass of the star, and mass also determines age.

More massive stars are hotter, but live shorter lives. More massive stars have wider habitablity zones, further away from the planet, and therefore less chance of the orbit of one screwing up the orbit of another planet. But again, their life times are much shorter. And tend to end life rather dramatically. (Supernova)

Planets in orbit perturb other planets, also in orbit. And so there may be a very good reason for the separation of planets as observed in this solar system is so far apart. If they get too close, they tend to smack into each other, or kicked out of the solar system altogether.

So I still think that it is more metaphorical rather than literal. But in the end, does it really matter? Firefly is a great show, and does not bother me one way or the other. Just wish we had more episodes to watch.

RANDY

Friday, February 14, 2003 5:15 AM

Gosh, that is an impressive body of knowledge. You've really expanded your breadth of "space know-hows" into a pretty comprehensive base. That is quite amazing.

And yes, after all these discussions on theories and speculations, all we really want is more Firefly, flawed physics and all.

"...morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with" - Mal

VETERAN

Friday, February 14, 2003 6:32 AM

We should probably start another thread, but here it goes anyway...

Some of what you're saying is right. Carbonate rocks are a large CO2 reservoir and this is for the long, long term. Your also right that biological activity is responsible for atmospheric O2. And I really like the stuff about habital zones, makes alot of sense.

However...

Carbon dioxide in rainwater does not form limestone on contact with calcium. The formation of limestone requires biological activity in a very specific environment. You need the right temperature, depth, pH and organisims to produce limestone. Ironically, rain water and carbon dioxide combine to form carbonic acid, which will destroy limestone quite readily. The result of this reaction produces bicarbonate which remains soluble in ocean water for decades.

I don't believe that much limestone get subducted into the mantle. Usually the subducting plate is oceanic crust. This due to it's greater density (relative to continental material). Limestone forms on the continental self in realtively shallow water. When plates collide the limestone is usually abducted onto the continental plate (not to say it is never subducted, it could happen). This is even more pronounced when two continental plates collide, this is why you find limestone outcrops on top of the alps and the Himalayas. If you want to liberate carbon from this limestone, all you have to do is erode it.

Interesting theory on ice ages, but common thought is they are related to changes in the degree of solar radiation, which seem to relate to changes in the earth's orbit, and tilt. These occur in cycles I believe they are called Milankovitch Cycles. I have to qualify this by saying a lot of scientists feel that there are other processes involved.

The reason I mentioned vulcanisim as not being valid in the first place was due to a repsonse about terra forming. Since terra forming is a short term process, you would probably try to creat an equlibrium system where your not relying on an unpredictable process to maintain your atmosphere. I suppose the process would vary greatly depending on the particular rock you were trying to create a habitat on.

This is fun, for me anyway. THanks for getting me to think about some of this stuff again, its been along time.

NOOCYTE

Friday, February 14, 2003 7:39 AM

Quote:
We should probably start another thread, but here it goes anyway...

Yah, I'd been thinking the same thing...but here goes!

You seem more hip to the specific chemistry involved in the carbonate question. My data comes from discussions on terraforming Mars (cf: www.marssociety.org and, more comprehensively, Robert Zubrin's The Case For Mars), where it was posited that, since Mars is too small to sustain tectonic activity, the CO2 gets adsorbed into the surface and pretty much stays there. Apart from the near vacuum atmo and a few megatonnes of dry ice at the poles, that's where it stays, which prevents this potential greenhouse gas from significantly warming the surface.

Quote:
Since terra forming is a short term process, you would probably try to creat an equlibrium system where your not relying on an unpredictable process to maintain your atmosphere. I suppose the process would vary greatly depending on the particular rock you were trying to create a habitat on.

I think what you're looking for in terraforming would be not so much equilibrium (which = death) but homeostasis (or the more fancy word, "autopoiesis"). The difference is that the presence of life creates the conditions for the continuation of life (Gaia). Yadda-yadda. You know this. Trouble is, I don't see terraforming as a "short-term" process at all. I imagine it would be a wildly expensive enterprise. And even if colonization is handled by private industry (and often consists of minimal stocking...hence the surprisingly plausible Wild West motifs), you wouldn't want to sink so much good Alliance capital into a project which wouldn't last through geological time-scales (think of the law suits!

). Thing is, on a planet with an active crust/mantle system, vulcanism is not unpredictable at all. Indeed, along with a biosphere, it is part of a self-sustaining system, which would resist perturbation a lot better than any on-going technological management (like big atmo factories).

Just want to say that it's good to run into folks who have such complementary bodies of knowledge to mine (and each other's). Very shiny!

And in keeping with some other responses (and...um...the title of this thread!), yes it is the beauty of this show that it is about people, confronting the contents of their characters under extreme conditions. As much as it is about community, it has also sparked the formation of a very active and civil and varied community.

And, as the icing on the cake for SF and space geeks like yours truly, it takes its science seriously, but doesn't pound one over the head with it (as opposed to Trek [which I also love {for the most part}, but in a very different way], which seems often to do the opposite). This enables us to have conversatiions like this, without resorting to the usual "hey, it works in the script" cop-out quite as much!

Now if we can only get some eccentric billionaire to construct the defunct sets on an estste somewhere (I'd be thinking Michael Jackson...but Joss has been careful not to include aliens in the 'verse!)

FOX

Department of Redundancy Department

NOOCYTE

Sunday, February 16, 2003 4:30 AM

Additional thought:

Many of my posts lately have been about matters of tech and science. One thing, though, which has always moved me about this how has been its persistent and potent existential undertone. These people aren't just fallible beings, thrown together by chance and circumstance (as if this wouldn't be enough!), they are people seeking some kind of meaning (whether they know it or not [Jayne, I'm talking to you]).

Mal is the man who has lost his faith. All he has left is the boundless frontier; he has to wander, because his reference points have been obliterated (kiss that cross all you want; the angels ain't coming). He is the fulcrum of the show, since all he has is his loyalty to the members of his crew (witness his reaction to Jayne in "Ariel." This is the standard to which he holds himself as well). Witness the moment of angst before he passes out at the end of "OoG," the dread that his people will be gone again when he wakes up, his blissful satisfaction when he's reassured that they'll be waiting for him when he returns from the Black. No matter how many times I watch that episode, a tear invariably forms in my eye at that moment; the deep vulnerability he shows is a mirror to the fear of emptiness, the dread of the void which exists when solitude threatens to expose us to the meaninglessness and absurdity which lurks behind the objects in space around which we chart our courses.

Gee, that's kinda like the feeling I have every Friday night at 8:00...

Department of Redundancy Department

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