'Earth That Was...'

POSTED BY: Kurgan
UPDATED: Monday, August 11, 2003 02:04
VIEWED: 7464
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KURGAN

Friday, July 25, 2003 12:43 AM

Watching 'Trash' the other day I got to thinking more about 'Earth That Was' and the legends surrounding it...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but *if* the Firefly 'verse is at least roughly a continuation of ours (and I appreciate that races, languages and odd artifacts aside there's no real proof of that) that the whole 'Earth gets used up and we teraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths' thing has to take place within roughly 500 years.

So based on that, here's a few questions that have been niggling me:

1) How long does it take to terrafom a planet, and what's the long term point of spending what might be a lot of effort doing it, just for a few scabby settlers to potter about in? Who foots the bill, and why? Or were the core planets the ones terraformed, and the frontier worlds are just the ones lucky enough to be habitable anyway?

2) How long ago was what must have been a pretty vast interstellar migration, and how was that achieved?

3) 500 years is *not* that long a time - consider how well 16th century Earth's history is recorded, why is 'Earth That Was' spoken of in Firefly as something almost as mythical as Arthurian legend? (And yes, I do appreciate that not many folks today are experts in 16th c. history)!

CORPRUGA

Friday, July 25, 2003 1:10 AM

Well, I don't really know the answers to any of those questions, but I'll take a shot anyway.

1) I've no idea how long it would take to "terraform" a planet, but I would imagine it would vary from planet to planet. It would probably involve balancing oxygen in the atmosphere (perhaps by way of plants?), and I bet that would take a while. I guess terraforming time would be measured in years. As to why, I sort of get the impression that a lot of these habitable worlds are not very large. As the population on one world grows, the people eventually reach the planet's capacity. In order to maintain a certain quality of life, I imagine settlers set out to a nearby planet because their planet's resources have runout. In sort of a gradual expansion process, more and more planets get terraformed.

2) Um...whoops. I sort of worked that in with the above answer. As to how long ago...didn't you say 500 years in your post? I mean, technology doesn't seem vastly advanced, so if the Firefly 'verse is a continuation of our own, 500 years in the future seems to be a reasonable setting. I would think that the migration would have been a continual thing occurring over centuries, once it got started. I mean, it's still sort of going on in the show, if they've still got "settlers."

3) I don't know...it doesn't seem that mythical to me in the Firefly 'verse. Both Inara and Simon seem to talk about it in a historical sense. I guess it seems kind of mythical because it represents an entirely different era, so talking about "Earth That Was" is kind of like us talking about the Roman Empire or something.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

"It's a thingie! A fiendish thingie!" --George Harrison, Help!

JOHNNYREB

Friday, July 25, 2003 1:51 AM

***Originally posted by Kurgan:
"Watching 'Trash' the other day I got to thinking more about 'Earth That Was' and the legends surrounding it...

1) How long does it take to terrafom a planet, and what's the long term point of spending what might be a lot of effort doing it, just for a few scabby settlers to potter about in? Who foots the bill, and why? Or were the core planets the ones terraformed, and the frontier worlds are just the ones lucky enough to be habitable anyway?***

Okay, Let me give it a whirl now. Firefly never answers any of these questions. But, if we are to learn from history, private companies probably footed the bill for teraforming other planets, not out of the goodness of their hearts either. Colonies are ususally set up to make money. I suspect that colonization was going on for some time before Earth finally crapped out. When it was time to move people from point A to point B, the other planets were all ready to go thanks to the private sector. That would explain why some planets are more posh than others. If one planet is teraformed by a mining company, it would be as posh and elegant as a West Virginian mining town. If another planet is teraformed by a tourism company, it would probably have all the amenities one would expect to have while on vacation. And don't forget, the U.S. wasn't the only one in on the colonization. Every country in the world was probably colonizing and teraforming for years before the "cataclysm."

***2) How long ago was what must have been a pretty vast interstellar migration, and how was that achieved?***

One can only guess. But like I maintain, the migration was probably happening slowly but surely for years before people decided to pick up the pace or die with the Earth. What's more, we don't know how many people actually died with the Earth, if any.

***3) 500 years is *not* that long a time - consider how well 16th century Earth's history is recorded, why is 'Earth That Was' spoken of in Firefly as something almost as mythical as Arthurian legend? (And yes, I do appreciate that not many folks today are experts in 16th c. history)!***

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment that people treat the Earth as a legend. Corpruga is right about Inara's and Simon's speaking of it historically. If anything, they probably romanticize it; or the masses are illiterate and all they know about Earth is what has been handed to them by oral tradition; or 500 years ago is a long time (for an individual, not a species)and it's hard to speak of something you don't remember like it actually existed. Any one of those three scenarios could account for what seems to be a "legendary Earth." Also, legends always abound no matter how hard you try to squash them. Colombus and his contemporaries DIDN'T think the Earth was flat. They knew it was round because Atlas is always depicted holding an orb, not a disc. Washington never cut down a cherry tree and 'fessed up. That was made up by a newspaper colomninst in the nineteenth century. And, yet the legends persist...

Also, I touched on this briefly, 500 years is a long time. In 1503, they didn't have electricity, refrigeration, computers, automobiles, airplanes, nuclear weapons, sneakers, radios, or t.v.'s. They never would have dreamed that we could put a man on the moon. Look how far the United States has come since 1776--that's only 230 years or so. Why wouldn't we be able to achieve light speed, teraform planets, and colonize space in 500 years?

Whew, well, that about does it. I hope that helps, and I hope people actually take the time to read this. Ach! Fingers...cramping! Eyes...blurring! Describing...symptoms! Can't go on...

Viva Firefly!

CANADIANJON

Friday, July 25, 2003 2:44 AM

I don't even think they've found a single planet resembling earth yet. Ones I remember hearing about are:
some gas giants
a planet with 1000 times earth's gravity
one that circles its sun in about 5 days
one that is so close to its sun its evaporating.

If any planets were found, they would be pretty far away, and they'd need light speed, or wormholes (or something) to get there.

PAP

Friday, July 25, 2003 3:06 AM

I might be speaking out of turn, but to me, the whole point of Firefly is that it isn't about the technology.

Who cares, really?

JOHNNYREB

Friday, July 25, 2003 3:45 AM

No, you are quite right. They seem to go out of their way to tone down the technology. ("Can you put that into Captain Dummy talk?") But, that, to some, is all the more reason to discuss it. It leaves something to think about.

Viva Firefly!

CCT

Friday, July 25, 2003 5:14 AM

The reason all the planets they've found are huge freaks is because a plain, tiny little earth-like planet is way too small to see. In a lot of cases the way they've detected these planets is by measuring their effect on their sun- either tiny differences in the suns light as the planet passes between it and us, or variations in the suns orbit because of the pull of the planet. To do either of these things measurably takes something that makes Jupiter look puny. So, for now, the only discoveries are the easiest to see beasts.

BUT, this is still good- establishing that planets are common is important. If we found that hardly any suns had big planets would imply that there probably aren't many little ones either.

Of course, until I get to see them they're all make believe anyway. Like France, or Japan... I'm not really 100% sure either exist. Or California for that matter!

WHOODAHN

Friday, July 25, 2003 5:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by cct:
Of course, until I get to see them they're all make believe anyway. Like France, or Japan... I'm not really 100% sure either exist. Or California for that matter!

California actually slipped into the ocean during the 1989 earthquake. It was a government plot not to let the general public know of the mass destruction so they continue to send out news reports to make it look like California is still here. It's not the first time we've had an actor for a governer.

There is a secret government group that tracks down any leaks...hold on, someone is knocking at the doo..........

MANIACNUMBERONE

Friday, July 25, 2003 8:12 AM

Well, from what little I know (and that's pretty little -ask anybody) the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a galaxy about 400 light days from earth. Recently, about 20 yrs ago, another closer galaxy was found about a third of the distance to the LMC. The way they found the closer one was by finally figuring out that it was really spread out and obscured by the milky way. (I forget it's name at the moment. Something like small dwarf galaxy, or maybe a name similar to that.) It's possible to assume that that closer galaxy could have been where the "earth that was" population went to. But I am kind of thinking that is still to far for them to have gone. More likely, an even closer galaxy was likely to have been found, (in firefly future) so that would facilitate the travel time problem.

DRAKON

Friday, July 25, 2003 9:09 AM

"1) How long does it take to terrafom a planet, and what's the long term point of spending what might be a lot of effort doing it, just for a few scabby settlers to potter about in? Who foots the bill, and why? Or were the core planets the ones terraformed, and the frontier worlds are just the ones lucky enough to be habitable anyway? "

There is no data either way for your last question. There is also a question of what these various worlds were like in the beginning, which will govern how long it takes to terraform. The closer it is, the quicker it will be. In a lot of cases, I can imagine that simply getting the atmosphere right will do much of the work. Now how do you get that gas to the planet?

Dropping gaseous asteroids onto the surface would take care of most of that work, and rather quickly, depending on the chemical makeup of the rock. A planet with an ice ring nearby would have a wealth of material to pump up the atmosphere.

As for who foots the bill, that depends more on culture and economics. If it is a matter of just getting the air right, then all you really need is a big enough ship to transport the gasses (in the form of ice) to where you want them. If you have a central government kind of culture, then that is who will foot the bill, the government or the tax payers. For a more free market economy, a corporation could do it, and it would be viable to do so. Imagine the land you could turn around and sell, and the profits you could make, even if the per acre price were real cheap.

As for motivation, heck, getting away from anyone else, making your own life, there is plenty of motivation out there. Ask your ancestors, if they are American, why they left the old country to come here.

2) How long ago was what must have been a pretty vast interstellar migration, and how was that achieved?

The puppet show in Heart of Gold indicates some cataclym befell the earth. And people boarded ships and left it. It would take a LOT of ships, to transport a LOT of people, to evacuate the planet. But still, it depends on the nature of the demise, which so far, Firefly has been somewhat vague about.

3) 500 years is *not* that long a time - consider how well 16th century Earth's history is recorded, why is 'Earth That Was' spoken of in Firefly as something almost as mythical as Arthurian legend? (And yes, I do appreciate that not many folks today are experts in 16th c. history)!

You answered that one yourself Plus you also have the fact that Earth that was, ain't no more. And that adds to the mythic qualities. Just as JFK is considered with almost mythic awe these days, despite having died in the early 60's

"my kind of stupid"

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