Question about the planet Miranda
POSTED BY: nihonniirugaijin
UPDATED: Monday, December 29, 2008 00:47
VIEWED: 9174
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Quote:
Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
By that logic, only our Earth should be listed in any description of our solar system.
We don't travel our solar system. There aren't hundreds of worlds to keep track of in our solar system. People who could fly from one planet to another with relative ease would have a different view of astronomy than we do. It would be taught in schools like geography. I don't even remember the name of every country I learned about in geography, and I doubt very many people do. Who would keep track of countries that were incapable of supporting life? Countries without something as basic as oxygen? We wouldn't. We keep track of the planets because there are eight of them, and they intrigue us still because we have no good way of getting there, but planets in the 'verse are like countries. Countries farther flung than any we live with now. Most people probably barely heard of Miranda, and when the experiment went wrong, it was easy enough to declare it a black rock, wait a short interval, and erase reference to it.
As to the organization of Reavers, it's something that's also puzzled me, and has been the subject of a few threads here. I think it's a far greater hole than a huge planetary government successfully covering up their blunder, though there have been a few fairly good thoughts on how they survive, how thier society might work.
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You analogy of Firefly astronomy and our current geography proves my point. Go on the internet, our version of the Cortex, and you can find information on every uninhabited tiny islet in any ocean of the world. Let's say you hear about, oh, Henderson Island, type it in Google and you have information on it.
Just because a planet is uninhabited certainly doesn't mean it is not going to be on the charts of the Firefly solar system.
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Also, I would like to read the threads about Reavers, but I could not find any when I scanned the list of threads. Can you provide a link? Thanks in advance.
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Quote:
Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
You analogy of Firefly astronomy and our current geography proves my point. Go on the internet, our version of the Cortex, and you can find information on every uninhabited tiny islet in any ocean of the world. Let's say you hear about, oh, Henderson Island, type it in Google and you have information on it.
Just because a planet is uninhabited certainly doesn't mean it is not going to be on the charts of the Firefly solar system.
For one, who randomly googles Henderson Island? Who would really notice if they renamed it Winchester Island?
It's lots more difficult, when just the name is removed from the databases. The planet itself was not, though it was listed as black rock, but the name was probably removed. Other related files (calls for settlers) maybe have been removed or altered to make the number of settlers appear smaller. Just enough to blur the connection between the failed planet and the black rock located behind Reaver Territory. Suppress reports about Reavers, as well... I see it fading from consciousness because no one cares about that area of space. IN particular because a giant war seemed to happened straight on the heels of that incident. For all we know there was more than one failed terraforming attempt, so why should Miranda stand out?
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Quote:
Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
Also, I would like to read the threads about Reavers, but I could not find any when I scanned the list of threads. Can you provide a link? Thanks in advance.
They've all been archived by now.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=14212
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=25463
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=18530
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=19023
just to name a few.
Also, I will assume this Henderson Island has oxygen and so forth. It's not uninhabitable, just uninhabited.
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Quote:
Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
Go on the internet, our version of the Cortex, and you can find information on every uninhabited tiny islet in any ocean of the world.
Yes, because you can trust Google and Wikipedia not to censor things.
Hmm.
Even so, our Internet is an ungovernable free-for-all because it snuck in under the radar of the "powers that be" - even though they built big parts of it, they didn't anticipate what it would become. I'm sure the Alliance/Blue Sun corp wouldn't have made that mistake again and could suppress any info on the cortex they didn't like, unless it got into the hands of a well equipped hacker like Mr Universe.
I live in the UK, but I've visited the US many times and I have colleagues with family there - so on 24/7, I was immediately wondering whether so-and-so has got back from the States OK, and what part of New York wossname works in.
The 'verse isn't like that: travel time between worlds is measured in days and weeks, not hours. People who leave to settle other worlds are gone for good, their families will have had their "American wakes" and bade them farewell.
Plus, the only people with the money/free time to be tourists would be the good Alliance citizens of the inner planets, who strike me as a fairly hedonistic bunch who aren't going to slum it on some outback planet when they can have two weeks in a 5-star hotel on Ariel (especially as everywhere else looks like the desert 50 miles out from LA. The Miranda colonists were likely recruited from shitholes on the outer moons. Their families probably don't take foreign holidays or subscribe to broadband cortex access...
So, its likely to be much easier to pull off the "Miranda" deception in the 'verse than on Earth-that-currently-is.
As for the other plotholes:
(1) the PAX may well have been tested on small groups for limited periods, just like they did with thalidomide and all the other drugs with side effects that didn't turn up until they had been used on a large scale...
(2) We've only met the Reavers "in battle" in full beserker mode - when the bloodlust subsides they might calm down enough to achieve some sort of organization.
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The "Cortex" apparently allowed for relatively easy communications between planets. That said, how do you explain the sudden disappearance of 30 million people. Most of them had kin elsewhere in the verse. Kind of hard to cover that all up, unless you're writing movie scripts...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Suasor:
The "Cortex" apparently allowed for relatively easy communications between planets. That said, how do you explain the sudden disappearance of 30 million people.
Not sure what the population of the 'verse is, but its probably many times that of Earth-that-is and 30 million is a drop in the ocean.
Most of the 'verse vaguely remember a 12-year old story from before the war about a terrible terraforming failure that killed a lot of people on some backwater planet. All the Alliance has to do is to stop the news media "celebrating" every anniversary of "The Miranda Tradgedy" (as CNN, BBC etc are wont to do) and it will fade into obscurity.
Now, if 30 million well-fed sons and daughters of a central world like Ariel had vanished, there might have been more questions asked. However, odds are that these colonists were recruited from any number of backwater moons like Triumph or Whitefall which had pretty much reverted to the 18th or 19th century and where life was tough and anarchic. Its not hard to imagine that on such worlds, cortex access was a 10 mile hike and a week's wages and youngsters going off to make their fortune where the grass was browner and never being heard of again was a common occurrence. As long as not too many of the bereaved get together, compare notes and realise that so many people died in one place, the Alliance is home and dry.
That's one of the reasons that the 'verse is such a rich arena for storytelling: it is plausible that these sort of things could be covered up.
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Yes, that would work, especially if there had been such terraforming disasters before. But the coverup would be a formidable undertaking, especially in what we are led to believe is a democracy. Then again, the back story seems to indicate much corruption (thus the need for "Operatives" to take care of the loose ends.)
That new map of the verse, showing Miranda on the ass end of nowhere, makes it appear possible to keep the curious away from the place, which is actually untouched (except for everything being shutdown and everyone dead.)
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Also, Jane0904's just completed "Prospero's Legacy" is a good take on Reavers and how they might be "bred" and "militarized" by various factions in the 'Verse.
She also explores who might be vulnerable to become a Reaver and that itself explains a lot about how Reaver society works.
Also read her blog on how it all came together in her 'Verse. It's an interesting look into the creative process.
http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/
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