Map of the Verse discussion
POSTED BY: jewelstaitefan
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 30, 2024 08:33
VIEWED: 49136
PAGE 2 of 18
bscm, I was hasty and incorrectly stated our Sol was a RED Dwarf, when I meant to state Yellow Dwarf. It is still a white sun, producing white light (of our visible spectrum). Not referring to color classifications of suns, but the color output - so maybe "White Sun" was what somebody wanted since ours outputs white.
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When I ordered my Map of the Verse, I asked QMX if they planned to produce a companion product to the Map, explaining things not on the Map but pertinent to it and FF. They indicated interest in such a product.
This thread could also begin to address suggestions of thing we would like to see in a companion product.
Like maybe travel times. Max speed of Serenity. Location of homeplanets for Kaylee, Wash, Jayne. Which worlds were shown in Firefly but not named? Some of these would likely require input from Joss, but rumor has it he likes this verse and enjoys dabbling in it still.
Other items: orbit cycle/duration of the various worlds and suns on the Map. What were the positions and distances between worlds during travel in the episodes?
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Just a note:
Max speed doesn't mean so much in space. What matters is acceleration (you accelerate at full burn until 1/2 way there then reverse power for the last 1/2). Or, you use 1/2 your fuel, coast, then use the other half to slow down.
I saw somewhere that a firefly accelerates at a max 4.2g. I'm not sure what that translates to in useful numbers (134 ft/s^2).
But, the truth is the 'verse isn't hard sci-fi. It's about people, and the details have been kinda fudged.
I know computer architecture pretty well. I don't get to upset about the details of the computers. Sure the Astronomy is off. So are a lot of things. But the people ring true. That's why we all love it.
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hey, thanks for reminding me about the acceleration/deccelration. I keep thinking about the atmo travel rules.
but there would be a max speed, tho - can't really exceed the speed of light, can we?
Anyhow, was rereading posts and saw that the whole 5-star system thing was handed down (like delcared/demanded/decreed) by Universal, so QMX didn't have much choice, just made do with what they were given.
Also supposed to be some white paper coming soon to explain much of this Map.
Other handy linkies:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=17&t=34398
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=35693
http://www.fireflyfans.net/sunroomitem.asp?i=21340&nid=30023
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Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
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?
I had misunderstood something here. On the Map of the Verse, bodies are listed as Suns, Protostars, Gas Giants, Inhabited/Terraformed, Uninhabited/Unterraformed, ...etc.
This would mean the "empty rock" in Trash would not be one of the Unihatibed/Unterrafromed, because the epmty rock is clearly terraformed. In may be just slang for a sparsely inhabited body, or it might be "empty" although certainly not "unterraformed". So my assumption regarding it being either Rubicon or Hades is likely incorrect.
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Edit: 25 days after this post, a better reasoned chart is posted to replace this one.
And after the White Paper was posted around the end of Feb, a March post updated with better data is added.
I'll try a little starting over on some calculations.
Apparently there are 4 or 5 different scales or measurement used on this product, and many do not seem to match or correlate.
For the purpose of moving forward, let's start by using the largest map and it's stated scale of one inch equals approx 5.88Au.
In the Red Sun system, the orbit of Jiangyin has a radius of about 13/32 inch, and the orbit of Greenleaf has a radius of about 1 11/16 inch.
That gives a distance of 41/32 inch when they are nearest, and about 67/32 when farthest from each other. This coverts to about 7.53Au when near and 12.31Au when far. We can assume in Safe that they will use max speed/acceleration when trying to get dying Book to Med Facilities, and this is supposed to be 10 hours. So 5 hours of acceleration,. and 5 hours of decceleration.
The min accel rate would be 0.30 Au/hour sq, and the fastest would be about 0.492 Au/hour sq.
A rudimentary time/distance table would be like this:
Time Min & Max distance/speed
1 hour. 0.15 @0.30 0.246 @0.492
2 hours. 0.60 @0.60 0.984 @0.984
3 hours. 1.35 @0.90 2.214 @1.476
4 hours. 2.40 @1.20 3.936 @1.968
5 hours. 3.75 @1.50 6.150 @2.460
6 hours. 5.40 @1.80 8.856 @2.952
7 hours. 7.35 @2.10 12.054 @3.444
8 hours. 9.60 @2.40 15.744 @3.936
9 hours. 12.15 @2.70 19.926 @4.428
10 hours. 15.00 @3.00 24.600 @4.920
15 hours. 33.75 @4.50 55.350 @7.380
20 hours. 60.00 @6.00 98.400 @9.840
25 hours. 93.75 @7.50 153.75 @12.300
26 hours. 101.4 @7.80 166.296 @12.792
So it's about 20-26 hours to accelerate until traveled 100Au, then the same to deccelerate back to zero.
please post correction if I have erred.
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For comparative reference, our Solar syatem:
0.39Au Mercury, no moon.
0.72Au Venus, no moon.
1.00Au Earth, moon Luna.
1.52Au Mars, moons Phobus and Deimos.
5.20Au Jupiter, 63 moons. Largest 4: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto.
9.58Au Saturn, 60 moons. Largest: Titan.
19.23Au Uranus, 27 moons. Largest 5: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon.
30.1Au Neptune, 13 moons. Largest: Triton.
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"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."
OK, I'm going to take a bit of issue with this.
"really should do some research.."
What, you think this was scribbled up on the back of a cigarette packet in 5 minutes?
You think nobody with an understanding of Astronomy was consulted? (They were. I'll get to why stuff went like it did)
2 years.
I'll repeat that.
2 years QMX worked on this.
Now I was only involved in the last 6 months or so, but I do know just how much effort was put into this. And yes, the logic holes are there. You'll just have to live with them because they are part and parcel of Joss Whedon's creation (all QMX did was give it a real pretty looking framework and make it a real thing to get your mitts on)
There are several things to note.
1. Joss Whedon avoids complicated real world science largely. This was all about telling a story. Fitting the map to the story was considered more important that trying to retcon the whole of Firefly canon. Firefly is not and never will be (despite a certain solidity to it), hard science fiction. (But it is of course Good science Fiction, no argument there, just emphasis on the "fiction")
[edit: see Stillson's comment]
2. A Real world physical model was tried for the map. It didn't work. No matter how hard a system based on that of Sirius (trinary system) was tried to fit what we knew of the Verse, it would always have huge logic and practical gaps. (More than the current map in fact. I don't dispute the logic holes at all, I just want to put them in context)
3. Universal said 5 suns, so it was 5 suns. And the Joss approved art for Serenity was based on this (the map in the classroom scene is essentially just the core, but Geoff Mandell had sketched out a larger scale version that wasn't used. This was the basis for the overall layout, what we did was flesh it out and try to make it fit Firefly canon as much as possible.)
[edit: Actually Jewelstaitefan already mentioned this fact in brief]
4. It's not perfect (obvously) but it is a (commercial) product produced with a lot of care and love and attention to detail. This is the best map that QMX could produce given the time, cost, direction from the licence holder of the property (Universal) and detailed input from the artist, folks who worked on the film, Browncoats (just fans, not paid, just asked to give their input over the length of the project, including folk who have thought about this *a lot*, some of whom have a working knowledge of astronomy), that was possible.
We fanwanked our socks off to make this :-)
5. It looks bloody gorgeous. Enjoy it for what it is.
6. Joss can turn around anytime he likes and say "No no no, it's like *this*!" And that will be cool :-)
7. Discussing it is fun anyway :-)
Nick
(The Signal: www.serenityfirefly.com)
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... What Nick said.
Brian
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I have been busy lately, not posting in this thread like I planned.
Viewed the bluray Serenity database on worlds, and it seems to be vastly different from this map, just regurgitating stuff from the show.
Quote:
Originally posted by Lemming:
"
That being said, I still love Firefly, and will keep this gorram thing on my wall."
2 years QMX worked on this.
1. This was all about telling a story.
3. Universal said 5 suns, so it was 5 suns.
This was the basis for the overall layout, what we did was flesh it out and try to make it fit Firefly canon as much as possible.)
[edit: Actually Jewelstaitefan already mentioned this fact in brief]
4. It's not perfect (obvously) but it is a (commercial) product produced with a lot of care and love and attention to detail.
We fanwanked our socks off to make this :-)
5. It looks bloody gorgeous. Enjoy it for what it is.
6. Joss can turn around anytime he likes and say "No no no, it's like *this*!" And that will be cool :-)
7. Discussing it is fun anyway :-)
Nick
Thanks for your reply. I was hoping for some more from a participaqnt such as you. Can you help clarify which of the perceived discrepancies are actually not, which were considered and accepted as not-so-important, and which were not considered?
Do you know where or when the white paper is available, for purchase or perusal?
Can you explain the apparent 2 different meassuring meathods for the 2 scales of map? One seems to convert to one set of Au measurements, the other about 2-3 times as many Au, and the distances are not of uniform disparity from one system to another. Is there a reason for this?
Was the ringed world in background of The Train Job teaser (while leaving atmo) supposed to be Baylix, or New Canaan, or another world not shown as ringed on The Map of the Verse?
Thanks in advance for your further help. We do indeed want to maximize our enjoyment of this shiny product.
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