Map of the Verse discussion
POSTED BY: jewelstaitefan
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 30, 2024 08:33
VIEWED: 49136
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My Maps of the Verse have just been delivered today (one fold-up, one roll-up). I would like to have some discussion about how the details of this product mesh with, and reflect upon the actions we observed in the series episodes, and BDM.
I do realize that, because of the purchase requirement, much of this may seem elitist due to the fact that not all visitors have access to a Map of the Verse, and I apologize in advance for this inconvenience.
Please remember that the Map of the Verse is a commercial product, and all rights held by QMX and Joss and Mutant Enemy and anybody else are reserved. For this reason I do not plan to just list all out all the moons and worlds and suns and all else on the Map, but I hope we can still discuss specific items of interest to browncoats. If somebody involved with the Map or QMX would like to detail what types of things we should avoid discussing, that would be welcome.
I will point out that this product displays a copyright from Universal Studios and a copyright from Quantum Mechanix. Because Universal had a large hand in developing (or dictating) particulars in this product, some level of canonical influence can be inferred.
I find that there are 2 worlds which are Restricted/Quarantined. Miranda and Shadow. I had thought there was supposed to be a third. Does anybody recall what, or where it was, or see it on the Map?
I see now that Protostars are also colorcoded this way, so that might be what I heard/read.
Some may recall the start of The Train Job, at the Unification Day bar. This world, or Moon as Wash called it, was not named. When leaving atmo, we see a ringed world in the background of space. I see only 2 ringed worlds on the Map (I had thought there was supposed to be 3), Beylix (Kalidaza) and New Canaan (Blue Sun). The next stop is Ezra (Niska's Skyplex orbiting) in Georgia system. The Map seems to indicate, that at the greatest proximity in space, Ezra and Beylix would come within 32 Au of each other (or about 4 light-hours). New Canaan is much farther away. Can Serenity travel this fast?
Anyhow, it the outdoor scene of the U-Day bar, we can see 2 worlds in the background. If Beylix is one, and it's first moon Charity another, and second moon Cinote the 3rd, then this location could be the 3rd moon St. Lucius.
Does anybody agree or disagree with these deductions or assumptions? If so, please explain.
or is there a 3rd ringed world in this Verse that I am missing?
Cool links provided in this thread from GreenFaerie:
online representation of The Map of the Verse:
http://wydraz.110mb.com/firefly/index.html
The White Paper:
http://www.fireflyshipworks.com/2009/02/the-verse-in-numbers/
Updated linky for The White Paper:
http://www.qmxonline.com/The_Verse_in_Numbers.pdf
Updated linky for The White Paper, 12 June 2014 - thanks to second:
http://pics.fireflyprops.net/TVIN-2.01.pdf
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Firstly let me say that I also feel like there are lots of logic holes in the map. It arrived on my doorstep 2 weeks ago and I've had plenty of time to pour over it. My main beef isn't with identifying worlds it's with the 3 glaring logic holes
1. Overabundance of suns. There are 4 suns and one bright monster (white sun) and in addition other protostars (Like Murphy). I said this on the previous thread that went over this and I'll repeat it now here. THERE CANNOT BE NIGHTTIME ON THESE WORLDS. Someone elsewhere brought up that the distances of objects in the 'verse would cause some to shine more dimly and there would be night on worlds. Uh, no. I'm sorry but that is wrong. Esp now that I'm looking at it and there are Star Specteral classifications and AU distances given. As I crunch the numbers of the inverse light law...lets see if Jayne can help me with this calc: (nuthin...then nuthin...carry the nuthin). Yes indeed, the result is...THE VERSE IT LIT UP LIKE A goram X-MAS TREE. Sorry, but the Battle of Serenity Valley as shown in the pilot Ep did not actually happen at "night". I know what you thought you saw, but this map proves that it all happened in the "day".
2. Blue sun being blue. This is retarded. Blue suns are enourmous monster fusion machines that irradiate everything around them and yank orbiting objects around like sticks in tornados. The only reason there is a blue sun is because Joss said there was, which means he didn't do his astronomy homework. No suprise from the man who self describes himself as knowing "nothing about science". This is why you hire people to consult.
3. No attention is paid to the fact that the best worlds should have been placed around suns most like to Sol. The Alliance worlds orbit White sun, which would pump out lots of UV and would promote hardscrabble worlds wheras Georgia and Kaldasia are yellow and suit plantlife well. The result? The Alliance paradise worlds illogically orbit a UV killer and the hard-life rim worlds orbit awsome yellow suns. Backwards? Seems so to me, due to a poorly thought out idea that the Alliance had to be in the "center". This may seem strange to 2-dimentional thinkers, but space is totally relative.
There are also gravitional calculations to consider. One could actually calculate whether or not these orbits could be stable because AU distances between objects are given with object mass sizes but at this point I'm not going to bother. The map needs to be started over with an Astronomer at the helm.
Gr arg.
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I am sorry if my post seemed to intend to criticize this shiny new product, for I did not intend this. I was hoping to explore ways to consolidate the various sources of data, and moderate conflicts of data.
I also wholly goofed on the math in my first post, and will return to it for recalculation.
Regarding night, the distances from suns may well produce "lack of light" just as we have reflective illumination from our satellite, aka moonlight. Becoming accustomed to the different light levels, generations of eyes would sense some lack of light as "dark" or night, just as today our "night vision" adjusts even when there is no moon light, merely distant star light, which gets multiplied in reflective surfaces like glass, lakes, etc. We still agree that even on the most bright full moon, the lack of direct radiation from our nearest sun source is our definition of "night" or "dark".
Additionally, many of the Blue Sun, Kalidasa, Georgia and Red Sun systems will have night except for the periods when Blue or Kalidasa is opposite the White Sun. Hera is clearly one of these places.
I also recall Inara's description of Shinon as "an ocean of light" IIRC, and your claim that such a Core world would be constantly lit by multiple sources might explain this description by her. I had originally thought she was referring to world-sourced illumination, but multiple-suns could have been what she meant.
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Regardin Serenity's speed, it seems we can learn much from Safe, as applied to the Map of the Verse. Jiangyin is the first rock of the same system Greenleaf is in. With Book bleeding to death, one would think they would use top speed of Serenity, and they said it would take 10 hours to get from Jiangyin to Greenleaf. If I am measuring correctly, it would be a minimum of 6 Au distance, and the maximum would be similar, perhaps the equivalent of 7 Au if the gravity drag of the system center works against them while trying to get to the other side of the orbital loop.
This would mean that Serenity's top speed would be about 0.6-0.7 Au per hour.
Assuming this to be the case, having Mal state that it's only a couple hours from Haven to Training House would mean they are only 1-2 Au apart, meaning the Training House was on Deadwood, or New Omaha, or one of the 5 moons of Dragon's Egg.
In Trash, the episode covers 72 hours. They start on an unnamed empty rock, and are on Bellerophon by 0600. If the empty rock was in the Core, there are only 2 candidates: Rubicon, and Hades (first moon of Persephone.). Hades would be a minimum of 10 Au from Bellerophon, and it would be a minimum of 30 Au to the nearest Red Sun or Georgia system empty rock (meaning about 50 hours away). Does this allow enough time in the 72 hours for the empty rock to be in Red Sun or Georgia system, or was the empty rock in the core? If in the Core, would there be a "night" on that rock?
An opposing mention of Serenity speed was in the BDM script, when River said that from Miranda to Mr. Universe was 367,442 miles and would take under 4 hours at maximum burn. With 1Au equal to 93 million miles, and 1/100th Au about equal to 930,000 miles, it would be about 1/1000th Au per hour velocity. This is not the same as 0.6-0.7 Au per hour implied by the Map in conjunction with Safe. Of course, this River line was not used in the film, so perhaps it was not considered accurate enough.
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I also notice that one world is named Barrowclough. I recall a Family named Barraclough in the Serrano/Suiza series by Elizabeth Moon. Does this mean there are EM fans at QMX/Mutant Enemy, or is there a common source seperate from these?
Also noticed 2 neighboring moons named Conrad and Bob. Whether due to WildWildWest or BaaBaaBlackSheep, not sure.
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Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
I also notice that one world is named Barrowclough. I recall a Family named Barraclough in the serrano/Suiza series by Elizabeth Moon. Does this mean there are EM fans at QMX/Mutant Enemy, or is there a common source seperate from these?
Also noticed 2 neighboring moons named Conrad and Bob. Whether due to WildWildWest or BaaBaaBlackSheep, not sure.
The name "Bob" may be a referance to "Titan AE" where the new Earth is (humorously)named "Bob".
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Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
Firstly let me say that I also feel like there are lots of logic holes in the map. It arrived on my doorstep 2 weeks ago and I've had plenty of time to pour over it. My main beef isn't with identifying worlds it's with the 3 glaring logic holes
1. Overabundance of suns. There are 4 suns and one bright monster (white sun) and in addition other protostars (Like Murphy). I said this on the previous thread that went over this and I'll repeat it now here. THERE CANNOT BE NIGHTTIME ON THESE WORLDS. Someone elsewhere brought up that the distances of objects in the 'verse would cause some to shine more dimly and there would be night on worlds. Uh, no. I'm sorry but that is wrong. Esp now that I'm looking at it and there are Star Specteral classifications and AU distances given. As I crunch the numbers of the inverse light law...lets see if Jayne can help me with this calc: (nuthin...then nuthin...carry the nuthin). Yes indeed, the result is...THE VERSE IT LIT UP LIKE A goram X-MAS TREE. Sorry, but the Battle of Serenity Valley as shown in the pilot Ep did not actually happen at "night". I know what you thought you saw, but this map proves that it all happened in the "day".
3. No attention is paid to the fact that the best worlds should have been placed around suns most like to Sol. The Alliance worlds orbit White sun, which would pump out lots of UV and would promote hardscrabble worlds wheras Georgia and Kaldasia are yellow and suit plantlife well. The result? The Alliance paradise worlds illogically orbit a UV killer and the hard-life rim worlds orbit awsome yellow suns. Backwards? Seems so to me, due to a poorly thought out idea that the Alliance had to be in the "center".
Gr arg.
Well, starting with number 3, our sun is a white sun, a red dwarf. It only looks yellow to us within our atmo. So maybe they wanted the Alliance to be centered by a White Sun as well.
Now to number 1. I am not sure figures regarding luminosity support your assertion.
First one can point out the brightness of our own moonlight - many times it is about 1/450,000th of the sun's brightness, but at max full moonlight brightness it can be 1/100,000th of the sun.
Now, the worlds in the core will get illumination primarily from the White Sun, and secondly from one of the Red Sun or Georgia star, not at the same time but sometimes switching from one to the other during the "night" of the White Sun. Even so, they will each have some small time when none of these 3 are illuminating them during their "night", and would only be lit by Kalidasa star or Blue Sun.
Worlds in the Red Sun and Georgia system would never light each other's system, and other than when directly between White Sun and their own Sun, they would have a "night" where neither of these 2 lit a portion of the world, and would only be lit from either Kalidasa or Blue Sun when in that arc.
Worlds in Kalidasa and Blue Sun would clearly have night most of the "days" cycles, except when between their own sun and another sun.
The following use some measurments from the 2 legends/diagrams. The large one has a scale of 1 inch equals 5.88Au, and the small planary version in the top right corner uses a scale of 51mm equals 100Au.
Around the White Sun, the palentary orbit which most closely gets the same brightness as our sun is Bernadette in the 1st orbit (measuring on the inch legend) or Londinium in the 2nd orbital ring (measuring on the mm legend).
These worlds would get from the Georgia sun (when closest) about 1/2763 of what Earth gets from our sun (40 times our brightest moonlight). From the Red Sun, when closest, 1/4406 of Earth's (23 times our brightest moonlight). From Kalidasa when nearest, 1/5108 (20 times our brightest moonlight). From Blue Sun when nearest, 1/4873 (21 times our brightest moonlight)
Around the Georgia sun, the planetary orbit which most closely gets the same brightness as Earth gets from our sun is Exra in the 1st orbital ring.
The brightnes
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Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Well, starting with number 3, our sun is a white sun, a red dwarf. It only looks yellow to us within our atmo. So maybe they wanted the Alliance to be centered by a White Sun as well.
I will respond to one...only one...of the many things you wrote above, because I have no time today to sit down and draw forth the wagonload of knowledge I can bring to bear on this subject. Let me focus on the first thing you wrote. Please note above what you said and let me say that:
Our sun is not a white sun. Neither is it a red dwarf. I do not know why you placed those two things together. This is a red dwarf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_dwarf
This is our sun, which for the purposes of this post I shall call Sol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
White sun is larger and brighter than our sun. It lies on a higher point along what astronomers call the "main sequence" of stars. Refer here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence
Sol is classed as a G2 star. Star color classifications go along this scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classification You are correct that it's color is white-ish, but as a G star it falls in the yellow band.
Do you see that band of changing colors? Sol is right in the middle of the yellow area. Red dwarfs are way down to the right and White Sun is up higher on the scale to the left, halfway twixt the yellow stars and the Blue Supergiants.
Dimmest and reddest are M class. Then going from red to orange to yellow to white to blue the scale procedes as follows:
M, K, G, F, A, B, O.
White sun is an A star as per the map. Sol is a G star. A stars pump out lots more UV radiation and colonies adjacent to such bodies would require radiation Shielding. Plantlife would find it hard to endure the punishing mutations brought on by constant bombardments of particles.
I'm not saying that colonies could not exist next to such a star, but where is the logic of placing the Paradise worlds there? Why not Georgia? Answer: map makers wanted the Alliance in the "center". There are no times in the show when characters are present on a planet with a star shining with the whitewashed intensity of What the A0 White Sun would produce except once: Miranda. Recall how white-ed out things looked on Miranda? THAT is a white sun. And Miranda is placed noplace near to the White star. It would even make good sense that Reavers hang out there, with the punishing effects of high radiation. But alas, logic does not apply to the verse.
I can type on and on about this subject but I grow weary of it. The honest truth is that I very much wanted a good 'verse map. My love of Firefly runs deep and the emotions I feel are akin to my anger at crap like Phantom Menance or Brian Herberts pathetic attempts to write Dune books like his Brilliant father. I want to believe in Firefly and this map needs to be re-worked.
*Edit* After reviewing my post it reads to me as though I'm angry and trying to start a fight. This is not true. I would say I feel "intense" about this subject, owning to my desire that anything Firefly be perfect. I always said to my friends that the two things about this genra that would upset me would be poor research on the two subjects I understand well. 1. Astronomy and 2. Military Structure. The first stands here displayed. I expect the second will come when someone attempts to provide a canon narative about the Unification War. Again JSF, I'm not trying to create a fight.
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Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
I always said to my friends that the two things about this genra that would upset me would be poor research on the two subects I understand well. 1. Astromony and 2. Military Structure. The first stands here displayed. I expect the second will come when someone attempts to provide a canon narative about the Unification War.
I totally agree with you. They really should do some research before putting things down on paper.. Firefly is the best sci-fi ever made, and, despite being a sci-fi, it was so..very..believable. And now we get this unrealistic map, it's a shame, really. It's just plain stupid, and should be re-worked by someone, who knows a bit about this stuff (no offense meant, but when making up solar systems, the author should at least know what a white star is). I hope they won't make the same mistake, if they ever will make book about the war.
That being said, I still love Firefly, and will keep this gorram thing on my wall.
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While I don't have the map (Yet) We must keep in mind that Joss doesn't know astronomy. He gave us a verse that we all love and due to demand, QMX tried to "reverse engineer" a 'verse that fits somewhere between Joss' visuals and real science.
Despite the shortcomings already pointed out, it sounds like they made a decent compromise. I plan to order my own copy fairly soon.
Brian
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