system or galaxy - what are the facts?

POSTED BY: Tiger
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 21:46
VIEWED: 23608
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TIGER

Thursday, July 8, 2004 5:44 AM

The drama of Firefly takes place in one star system. Here are the facts:

1. In all their travels, our BDHs never speak of other star systems. They mention worlds, planets, stations, especially moons, but NEVER other suns.

2. The blue hands guy says, "We didn't come 80 million miles..." This is an interplanetary distance, not an interstellar one.

Speculation:

The only fact that tends to prove otherwise is the beginning monologue by the Capitan - "the earth got used up, so we moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of earths..." Given that this is spoken in the character's own vernacular, I tend to think it's slang. Much the same way we might say, "Jewel is the hottest girl in the universe".

Who has other facts that support one side or the other? Go ahead and speculate, but at least mark it as such.

(and after all that, I wouldn't be surprised one bit to discover that Joss never gave this issue as much thought as we have on this board. After all, it's about the characters)

---------------------------------------------
...The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heart-breaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

SLOWSMURF

Thursday, July 8, 2004 6:27 AM

The main reason people suggest it shouldn't be a system is the shear implausibility. I don't know the specifics, but having 70 functioning bodies, even with magical terraforming technology, with only one sun is impossible or at least very very improbable.

Oh, and I remembered at least one more hint. When they refer to being 8 sectors out of their juristiction in the message, it would be hard to have sectors in a solar system.

SERGEANTX

Thursday, July 8, 2004 6:30 AM

There are good arguments to support both points of view. One notion is that they just couldn't make up their minds. I think it's more deliberate than that. Maybe they're just having it both ways, letting viewers supply their own explanation.

In other words, it's whatever makes sense to you. If your hardcore physics knowledge tells you FTL is impossible, then it's one system. If one system seems really unlikely, then it's multiples stars. Doesn't make much difference since Firefly was always more about characters than science.

For what is worth, the original pilot (the unaired one) had an intro that clearly referenced settlers moving to the 'furthest reaches of the galaxy', but I don't guess that settles anything.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

NOOCYTE

Thursday, July 8, 2004 7:31 AM

At last, I'm going to weigh in on something which has been bothering me about this topic for quite some time (not that I fancy this has been, you know, eagerly awaited or anything. I've just been sitting on it for a while, and it's starting to itch. Okay, the previous sentence is evidence that less is more when sharing my thoughts!).

Much has been said about the whole "It's about the characters and their stories, not the tech" bit. I wholeheartedly agree (both ventricles!) that the marvelous characters are the core (har-har) of FF.

However, hasn't it been said many times that Serenity herself is the 10th character?
If we all feel that this is the case, then it seems to me that NOT knowing if the 'verse is one great huge hulking (terminally unstable...) star system, or a cluster of systems robs us of critical information about that 10th character.

It's like saying that it really doesn't matter if Shadow was attacked by reavers, levelled by the Alliance, waiting placidly for Mal to come home for Thanksgiving...or never had any part to play in his life at all and is only an implanted memory to hide from him that he was really grown in a vat on Persphone.

Is Serenity a star-craft? A planetary hopper? Can she by-pass Einsteinian space and exceed light-speed? Seems to me it is very much in the spirit of strong characterization and organic back-story for us to know this. I truly hope this is addressed in the BDM...not because I'm an inveterate tech geek (which I surely am), but because it speaks to a character arc which has been neglected as sorely as that of Zoe (...).

Hell, I'd even go further (maybe not in BDM-1, but no later than BDM-2), and get a little history on Serenity's previous owner(s) and exploits (taking due care not to tread on the Han Solo/Lando Calrissian/Millenium Falcon saga). How did she come to be sitting, forlorn and bereft of her shuttles, on that hawker's lot where Mal found her (and she found him)?

And, for the record, I'm in the >1 star system camp. More dramatic possibilities (bigger, scarier wastes of Black to lose your mind in, more room to fly beyond the Alliance's reach); better science (true, you have the whole light-speed barrier in Ein-space thing...but that's pretty much blown out by artificial grav without spinning the ships; more consistency with the idea of an interstellar migration in a 500-year time frame, etc., etc...).

Okay, I'll stop now. Thank you for letting me cathart on this. Thoughts?

Keep flyin'!!

Department of Redundancy Department

HEDGEMON

Thursday, July 8, 2004 7:49 AM

*opens mouth to respond. Pauses. Rereads. Open mouth again. Sighs*

Yeah. Erm... That. Yes. Said much better than I could'a said. Erm... *reads the sig above* Appropriate.

No, this must be what going mad feels like

CREVANREAVER

Thursday, July 8, 2004 8:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tiger:
The drama of Firefly takes place in one star system.

Tiger, your are certainly not the first browncoat to bring this subject up!

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=4&t=3465

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=5595

http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=4&t=2671&m=34843

With a lot of credit to Hans, here is a hypothetical history of the Firefly Universe I made up. It has some theories as to how the series could take place in one solar system.

By the year 2060, global warming had caused severe environmental damage across the earth. Scientists, worried about continued environmental degradation, began to look for solutions to the problem.

A prototype Ion drive managed to accelerate a probe to one tenth the speed of light in the year 2069. Then in 2085, the first prototype Orion drive accelerated a probe to one quarter the speed of light. Finally, in 2099, the Galaxy Explorer Program launched eight unmanned deep space probes, equipped with updated Orion drives, towards nearby stars. A permanent colony was established on Mars ten years later. Research on terra-forming led to the first attempt to transform Mars' atmosphere.

In 2140 Galaxy Explorer Seven arrived in the Gliese 876 Solar System, 15 light years away, and began to transmit information back to earth. Fifteen years later, images from Gliese 876 reached Earth, showing a multiple star system with three G-Class stars with four Earth-like planets around each and a total of 58 Mars-like planets along with several gas giants around each star, each with at least two dozen moons that could be terra-formed and given an earth-like gravity field using Orbital Gravity Control satellites. The Destiny Program sent a manned mission towards Gliese in 2181. Destiny arrived at the Gliese system in 2215 then and set up a colony on one of the Earth-like planets.

Terra-forming was completed on Mars in 2216. Images of humans on the planet Sihnon in the Gliese system reached the Sol System in 2230. With the earth continuing to decay, enthusiasm for travel to the new system exploded. Three years later, the United Worlds, the successor to the United Nations, was formed.

Earth's moon was finally terra-formed in 2245. Then from 2250 to 2270 "The First Leap Outward" took place, during which several huge colony ships were launched towards Gliese.

In 2253, Jupiter's moon Europa was terra-formed. Finally, in 2275 scientists determined that without a massive effort, Earth would be uninhabitable in less than 150 years. A huge debate erupted between Expansionists who wanted to focus all of Earth's resources on the new system, and Homesteaders who wanted to focus on making Earth viable in the long run.

The first wave of millions of colonists arrived in the Gliese system from 2280 to 2300. These new colonies were set up on three of the Earth-like worlds (Sihnon, Londinium, and Ariel). More than a billion people left the Sol system for Gliese from 2310 to 2320 during "The Second Leap Outward". They settled the other nine Earth-like planets. From 2340 to 2350 "The Third Leap Outward" took place. By this time Earth's population had dropped to less than two billion, with the rest of the population either now living on Mars or on their way to the Gliese system.

An asteroid struck Mars in 2341, killing several million people. Conspiracy theorists said that the expansionists let the asteroid strike the world, to encourage people to abandon the Sol system for Gliese. Whatever the truth, after the asteroid strike the population of the Sol system for the first time dropped below that of the Gliese system.

By the year 2370, with the population of the Gliese system exploding, the colonists who had been on the planets for decades began to resent the newcomers. The Blue Sun mega-corporation won the contract to begin terra-forming the scores of smaller planets and moons in the system. Blue Sun would employ a special greenhouse gas that traps the heat in a planet or moon's atmosphere making the place warm enough to su

SERGEANTX

Thursday, July 8, 2004 8:30 AM

That's a great back story. I love the implied mystery of the lost Sol colonies.

Thanks for sharing that.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

CHRONICTHEHEDGEHOG

Thursday, July 8, 2004 9:25 AM

Book in The Message:

You got your command stripes at the Silverhold colonies. Puts you about eight solar systems away from your jurisdiction...

You can't be more than one solar system away from somewhere if you're in only one solar system.

check out my WIP firefly roleplay system at www.estador.co.uk/firefly

SIKKUKUT

Thursday, July 8, 2004 9:42 AM

Actually, Book's line is, "Puts you about eight sectors away from your jurisdiction." Sectors could be just about any size or shape.

Wow, thanks for the history ideas! Seems plausible to me.

Personally, I think that the evidence is quite clear for a stable multiple star system. The "86 million miles" line from "The Train Job" is the only really, truly solid fact we have, and as noted, that is simply not an interstellar distance. Hell, it's not even all that far within a solar system. A little less than the distance from the Sun to the Earth, as you probably know, and quite a bit less than the minimum distance between, say, Earth and Jupiter.

It almost certainly has to be a multiple star system, rather than a one-star system, because one star is very unlikely to support that many terraformable worlds. Plus, there always seems to be a sun in the sky on any planet they visit

Sometimes on the show they talk about "systems," but it's pretty clear that this refers to a gas giant and its moons.

Of course, when you look at it too closely, the science of Firefly breaks down a bit. In particular, I can't think of any conceivable method for altering gravity during terraforming. Ultimately, though, we can say two things:

1. Firefly has vastly better science than virtually any other sci-fi TV show ever.
2. As noted, the science is sooooooooo not the point.

_________________________________
"You're mean. Firefly's making me reconsider my lifelong devotion to Star Trek." --My mother

ADIWANROC

Thursday, July 8, 2004 9:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by CrevanReaver:

With a lot of credit to Hans, here is a hypothetical history of the Firefly Universe I made up. It has some theories as to how the series could take place in one solar system.

Thanks for reposting this, it's outstanding work and all very convincing. The notion of a multiple star system fits well and is a good compromise between the two schools of thought. I also love the notion of contact being lost with Earth-That-Was, oh the story possibilities that would open up.

Another snippet of evidence for the "galaxy theory". I was watching "Safe" last night and part of Simon's outburst is "It's fun, being forced to the ass-end of the galaxy". Could be slang (Jewel is indeed the hottest girl in the universe!!!) true, but it seems likely someone as educated as Simon would have been more precise and said "system".

Hopefully Joss will put us all out of our misery and resolve this issue once and for all in the BDM!

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