The earth that was.

POSTED BY: Giantevilhead
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 07:26
VIEWED: 11312
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GIANTEVILHEAD

Monday, October 10, 2005 7:56 PM

No one would go back there but people could have been left there. Plus I doubt that they could have taken everything when they left. The earth that was would be like the wasteland in Fallout.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:20 AM

Point of interest, nostalgia obviously is a big thing if Yo-Saf-Brig’s husband was using his considerable wealth to buy up artifacts from earth that was. He had a telephone booth if I recall correctly, not exactly something of great historical significance, just something that a collector or historian would want.

It says used up and I think it means that, the resources were so tapped out that they simply had to jump ship or completely redesign culture and lifestyle. If teraforming can fail so completely that a planet is abandoned (what Mal thought happened to Miranda) and we only have the two other useful planets in the system (Mars and Venus) it makes sense that we’d screw up our own solar system beyond repair before we could get it right.

The idea that the earth was destroyed after they left doesn’t make much sense though, I mean we saw the planet as they took off, does it look like it’s being engulfed by fire?

MANOSBDH

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:26 AM

Earth that was was completely intact, it just couldn't support the numbers. A huge percentage of the population left leaving lots of people on the earth. Not abundant resources, but there should be pleanty to support those that were left. Once in the other solar system, history splits. Hell, for all we know earth is like Star Trek's earth. Wouldn't that be an obnoxious crossover though....

SIGNINE

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:53 AM

I kind of take the Earth-that-was portion of the story for granted, as well as the exodus on the generation ships. On the other hand, idle speculation is one of my favorite hobbies! So let's say Earth was totally screwed (we're pretty close now), the Government is going to try to hide this (Global Warming anyone?), but at the same time the elite in government are going to begin heavily financing secret programs to save themselves or their families. So what we have is Earth kind of like today, only more technologically advanced, more polluted, and in danger of a massive seismic cataclysm (the end of the world!) in the near future. Seismologists would totally see The Earth being consumed in a volcanic fireball coming a bit away, though they probably wouldn't know exactly when.

The major world governments begin hoarding resources, fighting minor wars with one another, and all trying to come up with a way to reverse the damage to the Earth or get off of it. It turns out that the technology to reverse the damage will be pointless now (since the cataclysm is coming) and they redouble efforts to build colony ships (and put this equipment on them for terraforming). They locate a few star systems that look like they might have a large number of small planetary bodies, and fire off the colony ships. Likely these ships have a fair amount of scientists, really fertile women, livestock, seeds for almost every kind of plant, manual laborers, and a large number of well-connected people who put everything they had into getting off Earth.

Now, as a matter of physics, let's say they didn't have artificial gravity yet, but they did have quite efficient drive systems. As you can guess without artifical gravity we have to deal with how inertia affects the passengers, accellerating at 20gs, while nice, would turn every living creature on the ship into a dark-pink wallpaper. So let's say we accellerate at 1g constantly throughout the trip...or decellerate the last half, either way. The neat thing is that accellerating constantly at 9.8 m/s^2 will get you pretty quickly to 300,000,000 m/s (about 350 days). At this point relativistic affects would be pretty extreme, and there would be no gravity (unless they had artificial gravity, once again). On the other hand, those extreme relativistic affects would mean that, even if you're travelling to a solar system 2000 light years away, it's only going to be a couple days (to you) until you have to begin decellerating.

Of course, any interstellar debris would hit your ship at equally near the speed of light and instantly shred it to dust. Oops.

Either way, assuming that there's no FTL capability and Earth that was is known to have been consumed by fire after the colonists left, there's not much to be left in Sol, and whatever is is likely to be either very lonely, or very upset.

Meanwhile, on the first colonized planets (likely one was found to be habitable before the colony ships set out with the terraforming gear), the rich people who bought their way onto the ship set up a government and use the scientists, breeders, and laborers to build the utopia they've always dreamed of. Then, like all people building a utopia, they forget that the point of the utopia is to be good for everyone and not just them. The browncoats (laborers, blue-collar, whatever you want to call them) and scientists gradually grow dissatisfied and start leaving the core worlds in progress to terraform and settle the outer worlds. The Alliance (formed by the core planets after a few hundred years I'm sure) doesn't like this development, because the people on the outer planets are not under their control. They attempt to bring them into the Alliance, they attempt to starve them out to make them agree, but they still persevere.

After a bit, the Alliance starts trade embargos between the outer worlds, starts directly interfering in politics by using operatives, eventually pushing the outer worlds to the breaking point where they choose to unite themselves and declare war on the Alliance.

They los

SPACEMANSPIFF

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:22 AM

Here's my take on the situation;

First off, Mars and Venus would be very hard to terraform. Mars doesn't have the gravity, and Venus is just too close to the sun. But it could be done. But I think the situation on Earth was very dire, and with the present situation on Earth it was easier for the powers-that-be to build a few big ships, grab who they could, and jump planet. Good luck to the rest of humanity.

Now, generation ships would have been run just like a country. Political power with a few, and the rest just there to keep things running. Those in power, who later became the Alliance, came up with a story that says, "Earth was fine, there was just a lot of us, so we spread out." Those that did the work, some of which made it to the outer planets, know the truth, or a broken version of it. Hell, maybe that's part of the reason the Independents fought the Alliance so hard.

Also, for ships that can reach a decent percentage of lightspeed, a trip of several light years would only take a few of decades, ship time. So some of the people that left Earth could have been settling the new planets.

Earth that was is gone, burned away by pollution, war, and the locust-like way we spread. The Alliance is rewriting history, or at least correcting it. But the truth isn't gone yet.

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

GIANTEVILHEAD

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:36 AM

Did they actually say that generation ships were used to get from the earth that was to the new earths? I would think that it would have been better if they had just put everyone in stasis, which would save a lot of resources. Plus the new earths might not be that far away, a solar system that we haven't discovered yet, maybe 20 to 40 lightyears away. Assuming that they were travelling at half the speed of light, it would take them 40 to 80 years to get to the new earths.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

THEPYRO

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:52 AM

How come i remember in the begining of Serenity that teacher saying that earth was inhabitable and over populated?main word there, inhabitable? or am ijsut way off my rocker and she didnt say that? I could see a mean 'ol sequel coming here, The "earth that was" humans finally get off the rock we call earth, and very pissed off, follow the previous paths taken. The very pissed off earthlings start up the war again with the Alliance on the side of the browncoats, and we win! woh, srry that jsut poped into my head and i had to get it out. :) Would that make a crazy twist though, brought down by those you left......

The Pyro

GIANTEVILHEAD

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 6:36 PM

I doubt that the people still living on the earth that was would have enough resources to evacuate the entire population. I think it's more likely that they'll be able to gather enough resources for a few ships and send spies to infiltrate the new earths and find a way to build and send ships to the earth that was and evacuate it.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

CYBERSNARK

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Point of interest, nostalgia obviously is a big thing if Yo-Saf-Brig’s husband was using his considerable wealth to buy up artifacts from earth that was. He had a telephone booth if I recall correctly, not exactly something of great historical significance, just something that a collector or historian would want.

Which raises the question: why the hell did somebody bring a phonebooth while they were evacuating Earth?!?

Of what possible use could that be?!?

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:50 PM

I've seen it four times now and I certainly don't remember any mention of uninhabitable.

As for war, you have to remember that relativity is about relative stuff, I’m not sure exactly when they left, but I don’t think enough time passed for the resource-starved earth to get enough supplies to send out ships after them that would get there before our heroes died.

Also, if they were pissed at being left behind, likely, they’d probably not want to leave anyone behind themselves, and because of the time it would take to travel there is no way they could come back for some people. I think they would stay and work what they could.

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