system or galaxy - what are the facts?

POSTED BY: Tiger
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 21:46
VIEWED: 23608
PAGE 2 of 9

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NEXT PAGE

CHRONICTHEHEDGEHOG

Thursday, July 8, 2004 9:56 AM

Sorry, should have mentioned. I was going by the shooting script version. It was changed for filming. However, as it was written by both Tim and Joss, I don't see them getting it wrong somehow...

Also, the press kit map seems to have hundreds of stars all over the place on it (though we've only seen small pictures), not just the one.

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

RANGER

Thursday, July 8, 2004 5:46 PM

In The Train Job there is the reference to "the Georga system" when the report of the theft of meds come in to the Alliance cruser. The reference to distance by the Blue Hands only means that is how far these two travelled. This particular pair could be based in the same system as the cruser, and these are the same two that show up on Arial when they get the call on River, so maybe they are just the local agents for the Arial system.

I personally think it was meant to be somewhat vuage so the writers could simply avoid all the tech stuff and focus on the characters.

Traveller, if you go to Sparta, tell them you have seen us lying here as the Law commands.

DANFAN

Thursday, July 8, 2004 6:44 PM

This is my first post here. The engineer in me can’t resist a technical debate. Here are my thoughts on the subject:

1) As mentioned previously, the one distance mentioned is interplanetary, not interstellar. Not uncontestable, but significant.

2) Apparently (as mentioned previously) there are some mentions of other systems. The large number of habitable planets would support the multiple star system interpretation.

3) The use of words like “galaxy” and “verse” feel like slang to me. Like someone today talking about the friends in his “hood” when in fact he is likely referring to people all over the city he lives in.

4) Lot’s of talk about “Earth that was” that is no longer habitable. So they terraformed 70+ new planets to live on. If they have interstellar FTL drive and they travel between multiple planetary systems spread out all over the galaxy (needing only days or weeks depending on how circuitous the route taken), then a trip back to the Solar system would be like a drive to the grocery store. And if you can terraform a barren rock out on the edge of the “habitable zone” in one star system, you could surely terraform a once (abundantly) life-bearing planet smack in the middle of Sol’s habitable zone. Strip the poisoned atmosphere, reload a new one (just like you’ve done dozens of times before), reseed with plant/animal life from the Alliance worlds and start selling tickets to “Earth that is.” But the feeling of the story is that it isn’t possible to do what’s already been done over and over again… so why?

If I’m spinning an explanation that covers these facts, opinions, and impressions, this is what I think: Yes, the current story takes place in multiple star systems in what astronomers call a “star cluster.” I don’t know the astrophysics of it, but just to support the story, let’s assume several star systems very closely co-located so that interplanetary travel takes days and interstellar travel within the cluster takes weeks or months… all within the Einsteinian speed limits. The trip from Earth to the current home of humanity was an arduous, sub-lightspeed colonization trip… like sailing across the Atlantic in wood ships to the new world or traveling across America in a covered wagon. You can’t go back without an equally enormous expenditure of time and energy. A wealthy, well established system desperate to avoid approaching death could afford to send people out. An immature civilization desperate to build a new life and just getting back on its feet after a bitter civil war can’t afford to reciprocate. And a fascist government that is clearly learning to enjoy it’s sovereignty may not be interested in resuming ties with a distant and silent parent. So “Earth that was” is out of reach. Everything in the storyline is (relatively) local.

Seem reasonable?

danfan

"The sun is riz, the sun is set...
And here I is in Texas yet."

FORRESTWOLF

Thursday, July 8, 2004 7:26 PM

As an electric propulsion scientist (not an astrophysicist, I should note!), I find the Gliese 'history' very, very compelling. The fact that at only 12 LY distance from Sol, you would be able to reach some 60+ stars (many likely with at least SOME Jovian-class planets, even if in too-close orbits) makes me think a one-time migration is what Joss envisioned. The Gliese 'history' uses the multi-star compromise to the solar system debate, and brings some realistic (1/4 lightspeed) technologies into play.

I might change one thing to that 'history' - other than gravity control (which I find an unfortunate choice on the part of Joss), fusion power is the big (quite realistic) breakthrough needed for this. An ion thruster (something already used on real spacecraft) or other electric thruster needs POWER to get you to high speeds in a reasonable time. You also might need even faster propellant velocities than ion thrusters if you want to get to speeds like 1/4 C. But the key here is power - with enough nuclear (or antimatter, but Firefly uses fusion) power, advanced electric thrusters will be able to accelerate vehicles to extremely high velocities in reasonable (months to years) timeframes.

On the other hand, I hope that we'll have FTL someday - maybe in our lifetimes! - but I think the 'feel' of Firefly is strongly suggestive of a fusion-powered electric propulsion approach - weeks between planets in a system, not travel via space warping or hyperspace, and Joss seems to want science in Firefly to be rather realistic where possible.

- Forrestwolf
Nightfire: Neverwinter Nights Firefly

GUNRUNNER

Thursday, July 8, 2004 7:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
1) As mentioned previously, the one distance mentioned is interplanetary, not interstellar. Not uncontestable, but significant.

Nope two distances have been mentioned. An Alliance officer said the Cry Baby distress call was 13 Klicks (kilometeres) away, and their Gunships couldn't intercept Serenity and make it back to their carrier thats only 13 klicks from its prevous position.

Unless slang has changed in 500 years 13 Klicks isn't that far (as far as sensors are concernd). Modern Radar can detect objects a hundred kliometers away. So unless they didn't scan the whole area when they "Sweeped" Serenity they should have been able to detect another ship in the area.

So I think this is another point for A single system/star cluster, since Alliance Gunships dosn't have sufficent fuel to intercept Sereinty and return- unless they are very short range spacecraft.

The Firefly CCG Yahoo Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/FFCCG
The Firefly CCG Forum:
http://s8.invisionfree.com/FFCCG/
My Other Site:
http://www.geocities.com/billds9/

ZEKE023

Thursday, July 8, 2004 7:37 PM

I bring this up each time this comes up:

I actually asked one of the script writers over on FOX's site. He said that the script writers had no idea... it was left deliberately ambiguous.

So the answer is: whatever you want it to be.

RUTHIE

Thursday, July 8, 2004 8:06 PM

CREVANREAVER, I LOVE that backstory.
You're not Joss Whedeon in disguise are you, running ideas past the fans to see if they hold water?

Personally, I'm holding an open mind about the one or many star system debate - I've looked at both sides of the arguments, and just feel that we haven't been given enough evidence to decide either way.
However, I think Joss HAD though about it, and would have introduced ideas slowly over the series that never was
So I have great hopes about having the answer from the BDM.

However, a though occured recently - in Serenity, everyone easily accepts the idea of River in cryo - there is never any suprise shown that this technology is possible.
One of the arguments against travelling interstellar distances to get to a single system with many planets is the transit time being too long to allow for all the travelling AND terraforming to happen in just 500 years since the colonists left Earth.

However, if the intersteller transit was done in STL ships, but automated with the colonists in cryo, they may not count this time, but just start counting the 500 since the founding of the colonies.
As River points out on Simon's birthday, times and dates are meaningless in space without the reference points of planetary and solar movement - time would 'stand still' until they were using planets again.

*******************
Ruthie
*******************
By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man - man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him. (R.A.Heinlein)

DANFAN

Thursday, July 8, 2004 8:12 PM

The story feels more compelling to me if they are completely isolated from home ("Earth that was") and interplanetary travel is still somewhat risky (e.g., "Out of Gas"). So in my heart, I prefer the "one-system," or "small, tight star cluster" answers. That gives the story more of a "wild west, living on the edge of survival" taste for me.

BARNSTORMER

Thursday, July 8, 2004 8:19 PM

I think it has to be a Star Cluster. Meaning an area of space that has several stars in relatively close proximity to each other. There are thousands (hundreds of thousands) of these star clusters known to exist.

The ONE main fact that I know of, that points to Joss and Tim and the other writers showing us this in a loose fashion is the following:

In the episode Safe, The first two scenes are of Serenity landing on a planet, and then they show the three "really nice kidnappers" skinning the rabbit. In these two scenes, the lighting used for these two outdoor daytime scenes is an intense blue/white color. Meaning the sun in that particular solar system comes from a blue/white dwarf star. This could even be THE "Blue Sun" that evil corporations are named after.

After these two scenes, the outdoor lighting color becomes a much less annoying yellow color that we earth dwellers are used to. I think they did this on purpose, to show this light was from a totally different type of star than any of the other planets they had landed on, but then they shifted the color spectrum so as not to annoy the viewers for the rest of the episode.

Joss seems to really want to steer clear of the Star Trekian technobabble. Like detailed descriptions of Warp Bubbles and saving the day time and time again with Inverse Tachyon beams. I don't fault him on this in the least. The interpersonal relationships and the story arc he is telling are of much more importance to me.

But he does put in the occasional hint.

What do you think of this observation everyone?

Am I a Lion?... No, I think I'ma tellin' the truth.

BarnStormer

DUKE

Thursday, July 8, 2004 8:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:

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.

HUH? I never heard of any 2nd unaired pilot? More info please....!

"I'll be in my bunk..."

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NEXT PAGE