Making Fan Film - Need Browncoat Help with Cannon
POSTED BY: bluesuncompanyman
UPDATED: Friday, July 17, 2009 14:17
VIEWED: 15695
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In the Civil War, there were units that were organized regionally to join the effort that stayed homogenous, but my impression is most volunteers were still assigned and had to report to a unit, rather than joining up with their local militia and staying with it all through the war. Might be wrong.
We do know that Shadow provided a lot of volunteers, but not if they provided any specific outfits.
If 57th does hail from Shadow, then Zoë and Tracey being in the unit are probably attributable to the normal activity of soldiers being shuffled around.
My impression also is that, despite all the Civil War references, the Independents never actually seceded. I don't think the Alliance ever had jurisdiction over the Rim worlds, but they wanted it. Bullied people around, trying to force the recognition of their government, until finally someone fought back, and the Independents' movement rallied around that.
Some of the Unification War also seems to be inspired by WWI, like the style of trench warfare, rifles, the coats... that might be worth looking into for props, too.
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Quote:No, you're right. And you also spurned a thought in my head.
Originally posted by Bytemite:
In the Civil War, there were units that were organized regionally to join the effort that stayed homogenous, but my impression is most volunteers were still assigned and had to report to a unit, rather than joining up with their local militia and staying with it all through the war. Might be wrong.
In 2006 I was in Lebanon Tennessee and stood in the town square looking at a statue of the Confederate Col who raised a regiment of 2000 men from surrounding Wilson County in 1861 to fight northern aggression. The unit was decimated in combat in 1862, and the Col himself was shot dead off of his horse. The survivors were rolled into Lee's army of Northern Virginia and saw action at many famous battles, including Gettysburg. By 1865 a bare handful were alive to see the surrender at Appomatox. Those few men (I think it was less than 100) returned to Wilson Co. Tennessee where later their children set the monument in 1901 to honor their orginal Col. along with all of their fallen comrades.
My point is, a case can be made that Tracey's unit suffered a similar fate and he was rolled into the 57th, though that'd be blazing a canon trail.
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Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
9. When Badger refered to Mal's unit as the "Balls and Bayonets Brigade", was he being honest or sarcastic? This is getting to the point of determining if the 57th had that very moniker or not.
10. I've come to believe that "Burn the land and boil the sea" refers to Shadow's uninhability due to orbital bombardment during the war. Can someone confirm or deny this?
Re # 9, From the delivery of the line, I've always assumed thet Badger was being sarcastic. Besides, in the combat footage we've been shown there's no evidence... ( Of bayonets.)
RE # 10, that's the common interpretation. Not sure if there's cannon proof.
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OK, I have 2 new things we're looking for. I need to know the Chinese characters for
"Urgent" and "A Call to Arms"
Does anyone know of an online chinese dictonary?
Also, Mal refers to his regimental CO, Col. Obrin. Does anyone know his 1st name?
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Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
1. Hera: Was indeed the site of the final decisive confrontation but we cannot deterine if it was a rim world, a core world, or an unaligined planet.
2 Du Kang: This one is even more confusing. 1st is the question as to if the "Battle of Du Kang" refers to a planet or a city.
If you accept the new QMx map as canon, Hera is a Border world, and a stone's throw from Shadow, in the Georgia system. Du Kang does not appear on the map, which lists over 200 planets and moons, so I would deduce it was a city or region, perhaps on the planet of Aphrodite, which is a neighbor of both Shadow and Hera.
(a.k.a. wydraz)
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Quote:
Originally posted by fillygirl:
>>>Zoe was regular army and Mal volunteered<<<
... does not matter, volunteer or regular you go where the Army tells you, both of them have the same unit patch on their uniform, they are in the same unit.
(I was military)
Depends on their reference of "unit". Mal and Zoe were not in the same "unit" at the beginning of BoSV, every member of Mal's "unit" was dead, and Zoe was the only survivor of hers. Mal ended up in command of those still surviving. They may have been together in the battalion at the beginning, but maybe different companies, platoons, squads, regiments, etc. At some point during BoSV, they could have been regrouped and issued the unit patches they had in the 2 scenes we have from the Pilot.
But Zoe was in a different group at the beginning of BoSV, and many battles had been before (5 years worth) - so what was her original unit?
In many outfits, volunteers or reservists often fight together, having better unit cohesion, and might have a regular "advisor" for long term experience to draw upon. Don't know if that happened here, but with planetaryn scale units, and armies on each planet, seems more likely, and Mal and Tracy were planetsides, while
Zoe was born in space. Also likely regulars were more spacer experienced, while voluteers likely more gravity fighters (land/sea/planet).
Not that much of that was detailed, but because it wasn't, we should not assume it was the same as what we have now.
Many units historically have fought together after forming from a c0munity or state, if they are big enough and stay together until attrition makes them ineffectively small. The military values this because of unit cohesion. Unfrotunately, some groups formed this was are borken up at some point to "fill in" depleted ranks of other existing units. The earlier a group reports to duty after call up, the more likely they are to remain unified, and later groups, or smaller groups get broken up to fill in for casualty depleted ranks of other units.
One commonly referred to unit was the Tuskagee Airmen, grouped from one community IIRC. Some african american units were segregated but from differing areas, but some were also from the same communities (freed former slaves apparently grouped together in free state communities).
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Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
OK, I have 2 new things we're looking for. I need to know the Chinese characters for
"Urgent" and "A Call to Arms"
Does anyone know of an online chinese dictonary?
In Blue Sun Room, the Writer's Resource Package thread has some links to chinese and Piyin.
Just noticed that thread has 18 replies and almost 1400 views.
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Here's some info that may help. I found it in the Serenity RPG and the Serenity Visual Companion. I consider both canon since Joss was involved in both.
"Outer planets such as Hera (where the Battle of Serenity was fought), Persephone, and Shadow mustered forces - more than half volunteers - to stop what they felt to be nothing more than imperialist hegemony."
So, from that we can see that Hera, Persephone, and Shadow were originally Indipendant planets. They might be the three that instigated the Indipendant movement. They are the three that are specifically mentioned.
Here's someting else I thought was interesting.
"...Corporal Zoe Alleyne, also of the 57th Overlanders. She had been career Army, the opposite of Mal, but she had fought under him for the last two and a half years of the war, in more than a dozen campaigns."
Here we see that for most of the war, Zoe wasn't with Mal. She was only under him for the last 2 and a half years of it. Obviously, she was moved into the 57th. Probably the same thing happened with Tracey.
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Well, this thread has been sliding down the ladder for a few months now and I wanted to bump it back with probably the most important question I yet have.
The Independent flag will play a prominent role in the film. For over 2 years it was common knowledge to me that the star pointed DOWN. The shoulder patches of the 76th are stitched this way. (look higher on the thread to the .jpeg on fillygirl's posts for a reference) I watched the 76th march at DragonCon with star down when they flew their colors. I like the star pointed down, it just looks more real to me in that manner.
Now I'm learning that some merch is coming out with the star pointed UP. This upsets me greatly. Not only is it (In my opinion) not as interesting as before, but it casts a cloud of confusion on what I thought was canon. I intend to use the Independent flag in the film in a very obvious manner, as in "not flying in the background of a scene but rather right up in your face". So conspicuous will it's presentation be that it would be possible for someone to say "Oh look, they worked so hard and then made a glaring rookie mistake. How pathetic of them."
Grr Arg. To be as knowlegable as I am about Firefly Canon and accused of ignorance would drive me beyond sanity.
So I now ask the fff.net community: Can anyone shed light on this? I pray to the gods that this is the result of fraking internet merchants making mistakes and not something new I must obey.
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The star pointing downward has some pagan significance. Not that there's anything wrong with paganism, but are you sure that's the symbology you want to suggest? It seems like Independents as an ideology would want a symbol that's independent for religious influence.
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