Science and mistakes in Firefly: Ask your questions.

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Thursday, September 8, 2005 08:45
VIEWED: 13068
PAGE 8 of 10

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Originally posted by Shorny:
in Objects in Space-...

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Okay, this isn't a scientific issue, well maybe it could be if it were like the MADs/landing skids grippers in Ariel, but what about the ladder that Jubal used to get into Serenity? Granted, I haven't had my DVDs for quite a while (my mom won't send them back, grumble, grumble) so I've no way to check, but I seem to remember that the ladder he used to get into the ship, which is in the corner of the short corridor between the stairs and the corridor between the galley and the bridge (got that?), isn't there in any other episode. How do you explain that one, or am I misremembering.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Calonriel:
(I'm male, by the way, but no matter!)

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Guess they don't get 'Allo 'Allo round your neck of the woods then...
Basically thats a direct quote of the main character Renee'. Its set in war torn europe (who think that you could make such an amussing show about the nazi occupation of france, thats us Brits for ya...) in a cafe' owned by Renee', who happens to be married, but also having affairs with all his serving girls. His wife would, without fail, walk in on Renee' while he was in some clinch with one serving Girl or another and demand to know why said girl was in his arms. He always replied along the lines:
"You stupid woman! Can you not see the poor yevette was so overcome with worry that she passed out and collapsed to the floor, when I caught her and had to resusitate her?"
And of course his wife would always buy it.
Seeing it in print don't do it justice, just trust me that it was one of the funniest shows I've ever seen...

It was just a mangled quote that I thought was ammusing given the circumstances, weren't meaing to assign gender to you one way or another...

Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.

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The ladder is in a receccessed section that you never really get to see...

Chrisisall don't seem to be here at the moment so I'll say it for him...
DUH!

Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.

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Actually chris, i've just thought of a sciency question, and its all together un-mistaky too.

What shipborne weapons do you think they use in the 'verse, just thinking about it while I'm at work, I mean what else am I going to do at work? We've seen energy weapons used at least once in the series by the Dortmunder I think it was, to destroy the derelict in Bushwhacked.
Its that green energy beam and you see pulses go down the beam and hit the derelict pretty much cutting it in two.

So what is that weapon and how does it operate?
How powerfull is it?
What other shipborne weapons do they use in the 'verse?

Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.

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'couple of "mistakes" I noticed...

In "Objects in Space" when Mal kicked Jubal, he should have flew backwards in the opposite direction
(for every action) unless he was braced against something. He could have been braced against the airlock door the opened upwards, but it wasn't open onscreen.

Maybe he had magnetic boots??? Oh his boots were in loops....or whatever they are called - attached to the hull.

And another...my major sci-fi pet peeve (only Babylon-5 has got this right so far, and even they fracked up in "Legend of the Rangers") - any civilization that has artifical gravity wouldn't need reaction based drives (rockets, ion, *fusion* - like Firefly - and even steam - yes, *steam*) they could just turn the gravity field on it's side and go MUCH MUCH faster than conventional reaction based propulsion. Fast enough to reach another star pretty quickly. And like someone else said, they probably could even build warp drives, wormholes, etc...)

But they would experice relativistic time dialation if he went at STL (Slower Than Light) speeds...this means that a journey taking hundreds of years from the view of the outside universe, would only take only decades or less ship's time. So the 500 years could be measured since the arrival.

My only HUGE complaint is the solar system model -
all of thoe "70 Earths") and their accompanying gas giants would have to ocuppy a narrow habitable zone around the star called "The Goldilocks Zone", and they'd be constantly bumping into each other, and most been destroyed billions of years ago.

And bigger star might have a bigger zone, but I hear that most non-sun-like stars can't support Earth-like planets. (I don't know why, and I *should*.) Anyway, we clearly always saw a yellow sun.

But there where those cryptic "Blue Sun" refrences...as someone suggested on another board, perhaps Firefly's system is a multiple star system (with the stars far enough away to allow stable planetary orbits)???

Oh, and you could use shields to cool nearby planets, and mirrors to warm farther out ones, but that would only extend the habitable zone a bit.

There is a thread about it here: http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=4909312&page=4
&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1
(I know, I started it.)

And as for the breeding program - they can't feed the people they have already! Why make more? But I like the idea of having a few teen brides! (I keed. I keed.) well...maybe *18*...

Oh, and I haven't seen the movie, but there *is* a planet that looks alot like a decimated Earth in the promo - don't know if it's in the film..perhaps there is a perminate
stable wormhole between here and there?

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Originally posted by citizen:
Actually chris, i've just thought of a sciency question, and its all together un-mistaky too.

What shipborne weapons do you think they use in the 'verse, just thinking about it while I'm at work, I mean what else am I going to do at work? We've seen energy weapons used at least once in the series by the Dortmunder I think it was, to destroy the derelict in Bushwhacked.
Its that green energy beam and you see pulses go down the beam and hit the derelict pretty much cutting it in two.

So what is that weapon and how does it operate?
How powerfull is it?
What other shipborne weapons do they use in the 'verse?

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The military is developing particle beams even now, and I just read on CNN.com about a laser just developed by the DOD that can fit in a large plane, and fire in streams *and* pulses....

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Originally posted by reaverchow:
Maybe he had magnetic boots??? Oh his boots were in loops....or whatever they are called - attached to the hull.

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Magnetic boots of course.

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Originally posted by reaverchow:
And another...my major sci-fi pet peeve (only Babylon-5 has got this right so far, and even they fracked up in "Legend of the Rangers") - any civilization that has artifical gravity wouldn't need reaction based drives (rockets, ion, *fusion* - like Firefly - and even steam - yes, *steam*) they could just turn the gravity field on it's side and go MUCH MUCH faster than conventional reaction based propulsion. Fast enough to reach another star pretty quickly. And like someone else said, they probably could even build warp drives, wormholes, etc...)

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I mentioned the aculbier warp earlier I think. The problem with gravitational drives (ignoring the aculbier warp) is the fact they can't break the light barrier and would crush people on board with inertia and opposing gravitational tides...
Wormholes require more than just gravity to form, in order to become stable they need exotic matter and negative energy fields.
Its also perfectly possible to generate gravity with a conventional drive. You just accelerate at a constant 1g .

Quote:

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Originally posted by Reaverchow:
But they would experice relativistic time dialation if he went at STL (Slower Than Light) speeds...this means that a journey taking hundreds of years from the view of the outside universe, would only take only decades or less ship's time. So the 500 years could be measured since the arrival.

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Relativistic time dialation is only really noticable at relativistic speeds (speeds approaching the speed of light). Your talk tau getting very close to 0. Beyond that see my earlier post on intestellar travel.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Reaverchow:
My only HUGE complaint is the solar system model -
all of thoe "70 Earths") and their accompanying gas giants would have to ocuppy a narrow habitable zone around the star called "The Goldilocks Zone", and they'd be constantly bumping into each other, and most been destroyed billions of years ago.

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Well most of thoes are moons of the gas giants and bigger planets . In fact there is probably no more than twenty planetary bodies in the habitable zone, the rest is moons. Its not a stretch if you look at the numbers.

Quote:

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Originally posted by reaverchow:
And bigger star might have a bigger zone, but I hear that most non-sun-like stars can't support Earth-like planets. (I don't know why, and I *should*.) Anyway, we clearly always saw a yellow sun.

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Yep, but the habitable zone is a corridor in the region of 606 Million miles... fair amount of room there, given the fact that planets may not necessarilly have planar orbits if they're captured bodies. As for the why:

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In general, the conditions needed to support the type of large carbon-based life found on Earth may require an inner rocky planet that is orbiting a star in its so-called "habitable zone." Such zones are bounded by the range of distances from a star for which liquid water can exist on a planetary surface, depending on such additional factors as the nature and density of its atmosphere and its surface gravity. In addition, the range of star types that can support Earth-type life on rocky planets may be limited to those lower mass stars that "live" long enough for planets to form and complex life to evolve.

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http://www.solstation.com/stars/4planets.htm

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Originally posted by reaverchow:
And as for the breeding program - they can't feed the people they have already! Why make more? But I like the idea of having a few teen brides! (I keed. I keed.) well...maybe *18*...

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Huh? The breeding program was after the exodus, between that time and the time of FireFly... it would be essential to rebuild the Human race.

Quote:

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Originally posted by reaverchow:
Oh, and I haven't seen the movie, but there *is* a planet that looks a

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