Where does Firefly take place?
POSTED BY: Hans
UPDATED: Sunday, July 2, 2006 05:23
VIEWED: 62435
PAGE 16 of 18
You did indeed write a very eloquent Firefly essay. I trod some of tghe same territory on the OB:
http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages?msg=3863.269
and http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages?msg=3863.275
Just sayin'.
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I got fidgety about that myownself.
http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages?msg=3863.275
Ringworlds solve problems that cryoships don't.
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Quote:
Originally posted by WibbledtoDeath:
VERY fast sublight speeds are routine (how far did those Blue Sun agents travel again?....it was done in the space of a few hours to half a day max..the time between them being captured and the hands of blue turning up..was not much over the timetable quick get in and out with the River).
One of us is confusing two eps. On the chance it might be you, here's where I think the confusion arises:
In Train Job, one of the Blue Hands ops says they travelled 86 million miles (from memory). That would be to an Alliance cruiser, somewhere in space (I presume not too far from the world with the train). We aren't told where they started. In Ariel, which I think is the story to which you refer above, as far as I can recall they could have been coming from elsewhere in the same city.
I like your essay.
Keep the Shiny Side Up . . .
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Yes, thank U, I was indeed confusing 2 eps.
This occured in the Train job (not Ariel, as I 1st suggested), it took the blue sun agents an afternoon to travel 86million miles...a little under 1 AU
But I still hold to my belief that very fast non FTL speeds are commonplace.Travel time from a frontier moon to one of the core planets in A firefly class ship is 5 days (in, um, our Mrs Reynolds)....still makes it real fast(besides...the firefly drive effect..was designed to signify real fast (non ftl) speeds are available..without having to go into distracting technical exposition).
Perhapse the best evidence of very efficient sublight travel is Serenity's manouverability in atmosphere and ability to cheaply make escape velocities......this displays some pretty advanced tech.
Tanks to others also for the links to their ringworld explanation/discussion of the exedos from earth that was. It does indeed bear a strong resemblance to the way I imagine things could go (at least regarding the multiple nearby system colonisation)...
although, I imagine that the ringworld model would create more hemogenous societies than we see in firefly (rather than the extreems of primative isolated settlers and core worlds) and kinda reduces the need for terraforming new worlds(you already have a habitable environment...just need to park it near a convenient star and maybe do a lil more asteroid mining for raw resources...if my thinking of it it rightways up...please let my know if not).
Personally, I doubt that society would have got it together enough to have such a coordinated mass exedos (with temps an avarage 1-1.5 celsius higher now than when I was a kid...and weather patterns in Australia changed dramatically..we still cant agree to something so simple as reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Individuals can be smart...humans en mass tend to be really stupid) More likely that...after developing the technology to travel fast within system (gravetic drives, and nuc fusion thrust etc) and mining/colonising other nearby worlds (Mars, moons of local gas giants etc)....conditions on earth deteriorated to such a degree that alternatives became desireable.
Once conditions got bad enough...and given that travel through space (in system at least) was routine..organisation would have been irrelavent..people would pay what they could/do what is needed to get on a colony ship and get away without any need for organisation on a global scale (although, the practice of terraforming worlds and supplying peeps with transport would have been a real money spinner for corporations and businesses with the ability to do so.....)
Teraforming missions would have been sent out 1st...and colonists...as the environment deteriorated and the means were ready and available anyway...would have departed earth over time in a piecemeal fashion. Thus we have backwater colonies that have been been isolated for ages...reavers...panets upon which the principle form of entertainment is bird juggling etc..along side more modern developed worlds.
Also, I cant see that people would have been particularly concearned about getting to a far off high density star cluster..at least without taking the option of colonising multiple closer to earth systems 1st....Why would you bother travelling 60+ years to get to a system with many planets when you could take a 30 year voyage to a more modest location that would prove just as viable?...Plenty of good looking stars exist within any 10ly wide patch of nearby space..(see this great star chart of systems within 12.5ly: http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/12lys.html)
That said...the closest system to earth is a star that is a mere .24ly away from aother likely looking binary system...for all you "single" system nuts out there.....I mean, technically its 2 systems...but the distances are more manageable for non ftl travel (although you need to be faster than 2AU/day unless you got a lot of time on your hands..like 6000 days or so...)
Travel to stars within 15ly or so (let alone 4.22ly it takes to get to the
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Quote:
Originally posted by WibbledtoDeath:
although, I imagine that the ringworld model would create more hemogenous societies than we see in firefly (rather than the extreems of primative isolated settlers and core worlds)
Well, Larry Niven's ringworld (the original), which is a simplification of a Dyson Sphere, is pretty big -- on the close order of 6 x 10 to the fourteenth power square miles, or about 10 million times the total surface area of Earth, including oceans & polar caps. That's enough elbow room to enable one to get really far away from the nearest neighbour.
Quote:
and kinda reduces the need for terraforming new worlds(you already have a habitable environment...
You certainly won't be terraforming another solid body in a ringworld system. You'd want the mass for the ring itself but, more importantly, anything in the system that isn't attached to the ringworld poses a potential threat, in the astronomically long term.
Keep the Shiny Side Up . . . Train, "Drops of Jupiter"
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Quote:
Originally posted by WibbledtoDeath:
Personally, I doubt that society would have got it together enough to have such a coordinated mass exedos (with temps an avarage 1-1.5 celsius higher now than when I was a kid...and weather patterns in Australia changed dramatically..we still cant agree to something so simple as reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
What's your preference?
Encourage vegetarianism & kill meat animals?
Reduce milk consumption & kill cows?
Outlaw composting? (each of these three should reduce methane production)
Or are you more of a gambler?
Fund design, production & dissemination of methanophagic bacteria? (presumably reducing methane in the atmosphere, but what would they excrete? Downside risk estimates are left as an exercise for the student)
Promote automotive engines that reduce carbon dioxide emissions & increase water vapour emissions? (ooops, I'm sorry, you wanted to decrease global warming, didn't you?)
Offer to take in obsolete nuclear warheads from Russia & the USA to explode them in a spare desert you have laying around (& hope that models indicating more aerosols would have a cooling effect are right & those that indicate it would have a warming effect are wrong)
How 'bout something that does work, @least in the short run:
Replace fossil fuel fired electric power generation with nuclear electric power generation
Or do you want a sure thing, short & long term:
Legislate & enforce reductions in power production
Legislate & enforce reductions in power consumption
Radically increase (factor of 10 @least, to be increased later as needed) taxes on power production & consumption
Simple
Keep the Shiny Side Up . . . Stones, "I'm Alright", "Out of Our Heads"
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Actually, I was thinking we could bottle all those greenhouse gases up...keep em for a rainy day.
I am sure they will come in very handy when we are attempting to terraform some cold rock out there in space....
And yes, more use of nuc power sounds good 2 me
(What, you think Serenity runs on Kaylee love alone?)
Actually, we had the option of a perfectly viable solar power generation method proposed some years ago (all that hot arrid outback and no ozone layer has its uses) but it was rejected by a typically conservative government.....now we are investing in desalination plants (HUGE ENERGY HOGS..and very costly) TO SUPPLY WATER...oops, caps.....water for us thirsty people in NSW (who, as it stands, have had
Legislated reductions & Radically increased taxes on water consumption..at least in my lil patch of the verse). Anyhoo...this is not the correct thread for such a discussion...although I am sure that those living on the Earth that was suffered many such issues before they decided to go star trekin.....
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Quote:
Originally posted by WibbledtoDeath:
Actually, we had the option of a perfectly viable solar power generation method proposed some years ago (all that hot arrid outback and no ozone layer has its uses)
P'r'aps, but proposals for centralized solar-electric power conversion seem lacking in imagination (stuck in a mental rut). A cool thing about solar power is it is so scaleable. Why incur transmission losses of 30% from a regional power station when one can heat water & generate electricity @one's house? The coolest thing about solar is, of course, using more of the fusion power already being generated for us, without our having to ask, tax & utility rate free.
Quote:
now we are investing in desalination plants (HUGE ENERGY HOGS..and very costly)
I'm not sure why nobody seems to want to use solar distillation. It would require more area (1 order of magnitude? 2?) for similar output, but operating costs exclusive of debt service would be far lower. I can't find a comparative analysis.
Y'all in Oz (& SA) might be better off investing in B D Nuclear-powered Marine Engines, to move ice islands from the ice cap.
Quote:
Anyhoo...this is not the correct thread for such a discussion...
True, and I do apologize to everyone; it's just that the Real World Events forum makes my skin crawl.
Keep the Shiny Side Up . . .
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Quote:
Originally posted by WibbledtoDeath:
although I am sure that those living on the Earth that was suffered many such issues before they decided to go star trekin.....
Unfortunate choice of phrase, that. But @least now we're into General Discussions about Firefly -- still not quite the right forum, but a fair number of threads here in Ep Discussions seem to drift that way.
Lotta room for conjecture, here. Returning to your original question (title of this thread), I @first thought that the three possible answers could have different implications for the demise of Earth-that-Was. Then thinking back to your essay, I realized transport options were the key, and my response began to grow like Topsy. I'll work offline &, if it makes any sense, I'll post.
Keep the Shiny Side Up . . .
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okay get ready cause i'm going to cover plenty of stuff. *takes a deep breath*
1 in the movie serenity they show a picture of a large solar systern with about 12 planets i guess (not sure cause it was a short glympse)
2 Joss says he dosn't believe in the use of FTL travel
3 the best sources of power would be Fussion, Fission, and Solar
4 many of those worlds were moons which is possible to teriform with my guess.
5 they later mention in the movie that there were planets that couldn't be inhabited
6 I figure Green House Gases could be used to create a thicker atmo for planets that are farther out then others (the gases would trap heat)
7 Well i got nothin for 7 but thanks for listenin
people don't really apreciate what we do in this world, and when we're gone they're gonna wonder why the world sucks
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