Do we have evidence that firefly guns are guns?

POSTED BY: dbsousa
UPDATED: Saturday, May 22, 2004 05:30
VIEWED: 17267
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LJOSALF

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12:19 AM

In Objects in Space, when Mal is chewing Jayne out over the misplaced handgun that River came up with in the cargo bay, we get this exchange:

JAYNE
I don't leave my guns around, Mal,
and I don't leave 'em loaded.

MAL
Well, somehow she got her hands on your
hardware. Now, supposing she took up
something with hull-piercing bullets?

JAYNE
Bullets are soft lead, Mal. Even Vera
could... barely breach the hull. She's
the best I got.
Courtesy of http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/firefly/firefly110.htm

I could have sworn that the phrase used had Jayne claiming all his ammo was soft lead as though he had long since thought through the ramifications of armor/hull-piercing loads. Feh, can't check: my other half leant our DVDs out a month ago and they haven't come back yet....

Ljosalf

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

SHINY

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12:27 AM

I seem to recall an earlier thread that indicated you don't actually need oxygen around a gun to fire it...not sure where that went though.

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TIGER

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12:34 AM

Quote:
do we have evidence that the slugs being thrown in Firefly are 20th century style, chemical explosion type cartridges?

In Out of Gas when Mal is scolding Jayne after River gets a hold of one of his guns, Mal expresses his concern over what would happen if she had fired it in the ship. Jayne says "Bullets are soft lead, Mal. Even Vera could barely breech the hull" (or something close). Modern bullets are soft lead, and the fact that they look similar to contemporary weapons and sound like them, is a good indication to me that Joss intends Firefly weapons to work like what we're familair with.

Quote:
Mal's gun appears to me, as you said, a "Frankenstein" creation

Mal's gun looks almost for sure to be an 1860 Colt Revolver with the loading lever and hammer removed, then some kind of housing clamped over the cylinder and rear half of the barrel to give it it's own unique look.

Here's a very good picture comparison.

HOWDYROCKERBABY1

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dbsousa:

I would love to see the scene where Jayne instructs the Doctor in the use of weapons. "Always make sure you degauss your weapon after a long fire fight. And make sure you use the indoor bullets if you are inside the ship. Otherwise you will punch a hole in the hull the size of your fist. Indoor bullets turn to powder when they hit anything harder than bone..."

I don't think Jayne would ever have this conversation with Book because he seems to know more about Guns than Jayne does!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
MAL: This is my scrap of nowhere. You go on and find your own.
SAFFRON: You can't just leave me here, on this
lifeless piece of crap moon...
MAL: Sure I can.
SAFFRON: I'll die.
MAL: Well, as a courtesy, you might start
getting busy on that, cause all this chatter ain't doin' me any kindness.

SINGLETON

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 3:17 AM

Thanks for the pics.
Yeah, Mal's gun looks like the back half of that Colt, but I think the rest is part of a submachinegun or rifle. Parts of a rifle receiver were used to dress up a prosaic Charter Arms Bulldog, to make Deckard's pistol in Bladerunner, I figure something similar was done here. Making it fire blanks isn't very difficult, and these days, you can do muzzel flash digitally, if you want.
Jayne's gun does appear to be a dressed up LeMat. There's something around that lower barrel, that's perforated to disspate heat. And something on top of the barrel. As a gun nut, this show is a lot of fun for me. The lack of info is gonna make costuming a bit harder, but I don't plan on trying to duplicate a particular character.
Joe

Muscle.
Humor.
Thuggery.
Jayne.

SINGLETON

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 3:21 AM

Not to anyone in particular, but it just popped into my head. I've noticed the occassional sound effect with a vaguely electronic sound, during cocking of certain firearms. One I recall was when Jayne jacks a round in the pump shotgun, before he open the door to Badger in "Shindig". Couple of other times with handguns, but no specific instances spring to mind.
Something else to keep in mind....

joe

Muscle.
Humor.
Thuggery.
Jayne.

ROCKETJOCK

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 3:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Singleton:

As for Vera requiring an atmosphere to operate, this isn't even true with cartridge weapons, today. The propellants we use now produce all the oxygen they need. They can be fired under water or in a vacuum.

There was a bit of discussion about this on a thread a month or two back. The general concensus eventually worked out this way: You don't actually need a suit (or a "case", which is what the suit was a substitute for), in order to fire a gun in vacuum, but unless the weapon is deliberatly designed to work in vacuum, the environmental extremes of space would damage it, and probably decrease accuracy.

"You can't enslave a free man. The most you can do is kill him." -- Robert A. Heinlein

TALVIN

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 3:51 AM

I have assumed that, like so many other things in the 'Verse, there are several tech levels found in the armory.

Plausible, really. I am going to drag Static into this as an example: he flies a chopper with electronic weapon systems and fancy targeting (Apache), but his assault rifle design dates back to the latter-middle of the 20th century (M16), and if he is issued a sidearm, it is *probably* one that dates back in design to the early part of that same century. (M1911A1, right?)

Apologies for any errors of fact. My point is, though, that some of the weapons may be highly advanced, and others are likely to be tried-and-true models, like the shotgun.

So, just to prove that I DO have a point, I will end by saying that I suspect that some of them use chemical rounds, but I think Mal's gun is probably a gauss pistol.

And my opinion and an Alliance Credit will buy you a cup of protein with delusions of being coffee.

"I give up. I admit it. I'm a Browncoat."

FREAKYSINS

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 4:44 AM

Actually, in the picture there, Mal's gun looks more to be a heavily modified Smith & Wesson double-action revolver. The trigger's too far forward and the grip's wrong for it to be the Colt. Also, I'm of the idea that maybe the whole thumb-movement and clicking sound that we see/hear almost any time Mal's intent on making a point is not him cocking the gun, but him taking it off safety. It just seems more... in context with the visuals.

Then again, I may well be slightly delusional...

I like smackin' 'em!

GUNHAND

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 5:08 AM

My theory on why they use "old" guns, and I mean even old to us today is that when they left Earth That Was they recorded as much information as possible. I mean they'd have to, so they'd store on disk (or whatever) all of the manufacturing schematics they'd need for a whole variety of uses.

Among these would be guns. Now considering the nature of the beast the lowest technology that would be acceptable to use would be metallic cartridge firearms. Anything of a lower tech level, say muzzle loading rifles would be too great a hindrence for any savings in manufacturing base. Sure some on really really crappy planets may hunt with them, but by and large the lowest acceptable standard of weapon wouid be a metallic cartridge weapon.

They're also the most advanced weapons you can make with industrial revolution technology using steel, iron, wood, copper, etc. So on the frontier planets they use revolvers because they're the easiest of the MC weapons to make, Sharps rifles, etc. Basically Civil War tech.

Then as you get a little higher manufacturing standard you progress to lever action repeaters, bolt action snipers, automatic pistols, self loading rifles, SMGs, Assault rifles, etc. up the chain. Once you master that cartridge the rest of the work is easy. It wasn't advances in thought processes (for the most part) that lead from a Colt 1861 to an AK-47, it was advances in metalurgy and practical design.

So anyhow, the basic colony can support at the minimum a revolver and single shot breach loader. Now will every colony go through an extensive research programme to come up with the best revolver design? Hell no, it's already been done for you and it's stored on disk no less. So they start churning out Colt Single Armies or Remmington Dragoons or whatever the local plant thinks is the best design and one that people will buy. Just copy the data templates off the disk, load up your metal presses and go to town.

Plus I have a feeling that "open content" pretty much applied to all the historical data they brought from Earth That Was, there's no Colt company to come down on you wanting Licensing fees for making M1911s or whatever. So the old "patterns" are probably made by a variety of corportations throughout the 'Verse.

This makes getting spare parts a lot easier too. Your Areil Armory "Remmington Dragoon" wind up "bowing" a cylinder and you're on Persephone? No problem, just get a PFMC "Remmington Dragoon" spare part locally and away you go. No need to wait for a mail order part from the factory, just pick it on up.

Of course there may be problems with non-standard calibers on various planets requiring a bit more work to find magazines/parts for the weapons. But by and large I'm betting that there would be probably 3 standard calibers each for rifle, pistol and assault rifle use, like medium pistol being .45 or what have you to limit the problems. If you have a weird calliber, well then buyer beware and you wind up with Jayne saying they don't have any rounds for it when you stop at the Space Bazaar.

At least that's my take on why the guns look the way they do. From a "reborn" society it makes sense they go with the lowest common denominator and then work up from there based on how advanced the planets are. Eventually getting cases like Mal's pistol which are wholly new designs meant for specific needs to even beyond to the lasers that are in use in the Core with the Alliance.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

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