Where does Firefly take place?
POSTED BY: Hans
UPDATED: Sunday, July 2, 2006 05:23
VIEWED: 62435
PAGE 5 of 18
Quote:
Originally posted by SouthernMerc:
Just took a look at the star map photo that guy is selling in his press kit. That there is a galaxy my friend.
If that map is official then yes, you're right, it must be set over several systems. However, that's still a big "if". First of all, from that one small photograph it's hard to tell any detail or make any assuptions about what it's showing. It could be just a star chart used for local navigation (the same way a sailor today might have a star chart). It doesn't mean my yacht can travel to Alpha Centauri... :)
Secondly, we don't know if this is an official map, created as part of a series bible, or something thrown together by some person in PR assembling the press kit, using generic maps downloaded from the internet. If we can see a larger picture (pretty please) and we see distinct star systems with the names from the show, that's pretty strong evidence.
Quote:
Originally posted by SouthernMerc:
Oh, my 2cents. If a civilization has mastered artificial gravity, anti-gravity, and complete terraforming, I find it hard to believe that civilization hasn't found FTL.
Very possible. My problem wasn't so much that I didn't think they could master FTL, I just thought it was wierd that we never found out how they mastered it (as I stated above, FTL travel is more then just a bigger rocket on the back of your ship).
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Quote:
Just took a look at the star map photo that guy is selling in his press kit. That there is a galaxy my friend.
A galaxy? Heh, no kidding. Part of the galaxy the by the way it looks to me. The Milky Way to be exact. Anyways, in one of the photos it's identified as a map of the Planetary Nebula NGC 3242, but it looks more like a map of several star systems since the star at the center of NGC 3242 is a white dwarf. I'd love to see a larger version of the picture or a scan of the map itself. It looks like an interesting bit of promotional stuff.
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I just realised why I feel so sure the show takes place in just one system.
Watch an episode. Any episode. Listen to them talk about where they are going, where they were, where someone is from...
...and all they seem to talk about is planets and moons. You never here someone say "I just came from the Ariel system". You never here talk about suns or stars. It's always planets and moons.
Okay, okay, this is hardly definitive. It could be just common practice in the Firefly universe to refer to a system by the name of the planet. But it does seem to be one huge gap.
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Quote:
Posted by Hans:
You never here someone say "I just came from the Ariel system".
True, but you do hear...
"All network alert. Cargo theft. Medical shipment
lifted off a train in the Georgia System en route to Paradiso." --Train job
and
"Puts you about eight solar systems away from your jurisdiction..." --Book, The message.
Oh, I'm a quote slut.
-------------------------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kaythryn:
"Puts you about eight solar systems away from your jurisdiction..." --Book, The message.
Although I'm totally on the "whole galaxy of earths" side of the fence and I worship Kayt to the point of idolatry, I think she's got the Book quote wrong. My copy of The Message has Book saying "puts you about eight sectors away from your jurisdiction..." And since sectors could mean anything, maybe that's not the best quote in support of our position.
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Damn, that's some excellent quote research there Kayt. How many more can you come up with? And how do you do it? Do you have all the episodes in a word processing program so that you can search for specific words, or is it as I think and you have simply memorized more quotes than are reasonable for anyone to memorize? 
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> "Puts you about eight solar systems away from your
> jurisdiction..." --Book, The message.
> Oh, I'm a quote slut.
> -- KAYTHRYN
Actually, Book says "Puts you about, eight sectors away from your jurisdiction?" in The message. Watch it again. What is shown is surely canonical, and not early scripts.
I don't have a copy of The train job, but saying "off a train in the Georgia System en route to Paradiso", where Georgia is a star system, seems odd; kind of like "off a train in the solar system en route to Liverpool."
> If a civilization has mastered artificial
> gravity, anti-gravity, and complete
> terraforming, I find it hard to believe that
> civilization hasn't found FTL.
> -- SouthernMerc
That's a fallacy: there might not be a relation. Just because light bulbs and cars can be invented, doesn't mean that supernatural things like ghost ships can therefore be invented.
See also TheObsoleteMan's summary at < http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=2345#23235> and (re: NGC 3242) Wikipedia's white dwarf article at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/white_dwarf>.
--
I am Jack's username
Monarch (Firefly sim): http://tenforward.slasims.com/viewforum.php?f=104
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Ah, quite right, Mag.
I bow down to thee.
When I think about it Book did say sectors. I take back the systems bit. And Maniac, I'm just a freakin' genius but that quote was taken straight from Whoa, Good Myth.
http://firefly.shriftweb.org/index.shtml
You can see the quote from The Train Job there too.
-------------------------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
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Quote:
Originally posted by IamJacksUsername:
[B> If a civilization has mastered artificial
> gravity, anti-gravity, and complete
> terraforming, I find it hard to believe that
> civilization hasn't found FTL.
> -- SouthernMerc
That's a fallacy: there might not be a relation. Just because light bulbs and cars can be invented, doesn't mean that supernatural things like ghost ships can therefore be invented.
Quite right. In fact, there's plenty of low-tech in the Firefly universe (the weaponry used by the malcontents, plus the general look of the ship itself, plus all the backward colonies). It's hard to make any assumptions about the tech level except "it varies".
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kaythryn:Quote:
Posted by Hans:
You never here someone say "I just came from the Ariel system".
True, but you do hear...
"All network alert. Cargo theft. Medical shipment
lifted off a train in the Georgia System en route to Paradiso." --Train job
and
"Puts you about eight solar systems away from your jurisdiction..." --Book, The message.
Oh, I'm a quote slut.
The fact that the line from The Message was specifically changed before the show was shot does make me believe that the producers did want to emphasize that the show was not taking place over several systems...or, at the very least, wanted to leave it ambiguous.
As for the Train Job, however, that's definitely a tick in the "many systems" column, as much as I hate to admit it...
...but perhaps in the firefly universe people sometimes use the word “system” to refer to a planetary system (i.e. a planet and its moons) as well as for a solar system (a sun and its planets).
I wonder if this is a question where there is no definitive answer? Did Joss and co. leave it up in the air so that they didn't tie themselves down for future episodes?
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