The earth that was.
POSTED BY: Giantevilhead
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 07:26
VIEWED: 11312
PAGE 4 of 5
Quote:I wonder that as well, perhaps it was nostalgia then, maybe there was a ship that tried to collect random things as a sort of time capsule, or perhaps it is a special phone booth (one used by Superman in some film maybe?) who knows. But I bet that the phone booth took a spot that could have been occupied by a person.
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
[BWhich raises the question: why the hell did somebody bring a phonebooth while they were evacuating Earth?!?
Of what possible use could that be?!?
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Let’s say that it takes 50 years to get from the earth that was to the new earths and another 50 years to terraform the new earths. So they send the terraforming crew away in 2200, then they evacuate the earth that was in 2250 so that by the time everyone arrives at the new earths in 2300, the terraforming crew would already be done with the terraforming. It takes 150 years for the people left on the earth that was to get organized and another 25 years to scrounge up enough resources to build a couple of ships and send a stream of spies over the next couple of decades, so spies from the earth that was would have been infiltrating the new earths for about 25 years. I think that would be a reasonable scenario.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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I think we will all see earth in the future, when the series actually does continue.
I like these idea. Here are some to add:
1. Earth has been taken over and infected with a reaver prion.
2. Earth and solar planets have evolved to a much higher tech and are caught in civil war
3. Earth is complete unpopulated except for a few total loonies
But let's look at it as the allegory is intended. There is a reason firefly is a western. Firefly and it's precedence, Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star, are taking the notion proposed in the original star trek to it's logical conclusion.
Space, the final frontier. Okay, we all know, and then we remember how star trek the old generation lost much of that idea as time went on, and STNG seemed to have never heard it at all.
The implication here is that when space travel begins it will open a new world of adventure, and free us from an overregulated society in a downward spiral of decay.
Also, a western is an allegory for the old west, obviously, but this means colonial america. It's analogous for a reason: The same sort of situation is coming when we finally settle space. So this situation will probably resemble that situation.
So what is earth? Earth is Europe. It's the home we all left. The solar planets, also terraformed would be the colonies. New, yes, not Europe, but made to more or less clone Europe. The Alliance is a new govt., be it mexico, louisiana, or the union, probably the latter.
Reavers alas, are very politically incorrect indians. Which is fine, no allegory has to be perfect, I would certainly get very annoyed if I were faced with large amounts of bleeding heart "reaver's aren't bad they're just drawn that way" dribble.
So, here are some thing we know about Earth by analogy:
1. Earth is over-regulated. It's society strangles the freedoms of the people in it, and makes the freewheeling lifestyle we love impossible.
2. Earth is probably fragmented as it is now into a large number of warring countries probably caught in a genocidal war. Or two or three. Remember Europe was caught in endless war long before WWI.
3. Earth is afflicted with bad religion. It probably has some overarching religious leader, something akin to "His Divine Shadow" for you Lexx fans. It would have to be a new religion, which has swept through and replaced Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but based on the same bible. If it weren't so, it'd probably end up offending everyone.
4. Earth is still exporting people to the new worlds. This is where those 30M colonists come from (lost colony at roanoke on steroids) and since Earth does have a vested interest in getting rid of people, and probably in the success of the alliance, they would probably not let their people know. So more folks would still be shipping off to join new colonies.
I doubt Earth is full of criminals. By this model, criminals got sent to Australia Planet, which is out there somewhere.
I doubt Earth was destroyed. I think this is a story that they tell people to keep them from coming back, because they really don't want more people coming to Earth. Earth is up to it's ears in people.
At least I hope it's not "Earth is dead" - this is a really boring idea.
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I like the ambiguity of "Earth that was"... it's certainly never referred to as "Earth that is..." whatever happened on earth... the Earth that 'they' knew is long gone, long past at least if not 'gone' altogether... the place wouldn't be the same by the time the generation ships landed in the new planets.
It could still be there... lost in the black and resembling nothing like the world of Firefly... a great lost Atlantis (ala Galactica) or a powerful ally/enemy in future stories... it's really wide open.
"Guess you broke into the wrong rec room."
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Look guys, we've seen no evidence for faster than light travel, at all. I don’t know how far away the solar system of Firefly is, but I do know that it couldn’t be all that close to us. That means it takes quite a while. Odds are a trip to earth that was and back would take so long that when you got back everyone and everything you knew would be gone.
Time dilation might make it so that you don’t loose much time (though apparently an entire generation was forced to grow up in transit the first time around) but it’s still losing your world.
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No one would want to go back to earth but if there are people still left on earth, they would definitely want to get off. Since earth probably doesn't have the resources to move everyone off, the best hope they have would be to send spies to infiltrate the new earths in hopes of building up a fleet to move the survivors from the earth that was to the new earths, it may be a long shot and it may take hundreds of years but it's better than just withering and dying on the wasteland that is earth.
About criminals being used as cheap labor to terraform the new earths. I can definitely see that happening but I also think that they would just be killed off after the terraforming and possibly city building gets done since there’s really no reason to keep them alive.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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Okay, I need to put on my geek hat. My really geeky hat.
1. I don't believe in time dilation. The relative movement of space at that speed would cause far more severe problems long before you got to c, but the solution to that would be to simply move space.
2. Without doing this it's still very possible. It would take about 10 years to cross systems. The actual limiting factor is not c, it's g. The G-force created by the accelleration would crush the human inhabitants to jelly, even if spread out over the entire time.
3. In 10 years it can be some with some sort of suspended animation. Remember, SA is essential to space travel. It ups your life expectancy, your g-force tollerance, but far more importantly, it downs your nutrient intake. generations of humans would starve to death long before they reached the next star system unless their ship was a sizeable planetoid, which would make it rather fuel innefficient.
4. Criminals once moved are not necessarily criminals. There are a multitude of reasons for this. They are no longer in the restricting environment. Stealing to survive in ireland made you a criminal and in australia you didn't need to. Being a religious dissident in england was a crime for the puritans, until they came to the US. Also situation is bound to change most people.
5. Sure, they would keep coming, and will probably be arriving with a few years delay, even if they left 100 years ago.
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Well they do have artificial gravity so it's possible they have a similar technology that can negate the G-force created when ships are accelerated.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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possibly. Artificial gravity can be created with a clear invocation of spin and accelleration though. This isn't gone into in television usually because of convenience, but I guess the point is it can be done without the integration of an antigravity unit which would be necessary to decrease the effects of gravity. Suspended animation of the sort I'm talking about though is already possible, and would only require judicious application of existing technology.
If they mentioned an anti-grav unit on Serenity and I missed it, please correct me. I tend to mis things like that because they're like "for the piece of mind of the audience, the rest of this movie will not be conducted in Polish"
I'm going to kill them all. That oughtta distract 'em.
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Firefly/Serenity is pretty science light. They didn't lose artificial gravity in "Out of Gas" and for some reason Vera can penetrate the hull of spaceships.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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