system or galaxy - what are the facts?

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

Monday, July 12, 2004 4:49 AM

Good points, RealMe. I'm pretty much in agreement with you across the board (indeed, you have independently stated some points which I'd made in much earlier threads, e.g., my problem with the notion that you could always just move a little farther out in a single system).

One bit about the relative velocities of Serenity and the reaver ship which just occurred to me, and which I hope will prove as satisfying to others as it does to me: Just because the two ships' noses were pointed in a particular direction does not necessarily have a bearing (har-har)on their actual direction of travel. Both could have been thrusting laterally, to bend their courses into curves which would intersect their destinations. These curves could have nearly overlapped for a short span, such that their relative velocities (from the perspective of someone on either ship) would have been quite small.

Seems to settle the matter rather handily. Thoughts?

Department of Redundancy Department

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 5:10 AM

For canon, I personally look to the episodes in the DVD set. I'd like to include the deleted scenes on the last disk, but one could argue that they were deleted for being flawed.

The Real Me

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 5:17 AM

Quite right, Noocyte!

I hadn't considered mentioning the fact that simply turning the nose of your spaceship DOES NOT change your ship's direction of travel. In fact, the likely way to decelerate is to turn the ship around so that the primary thrusters in the butt end of the ship are pointing backwards (that is, in the direction of motion), then run your engine until you slow down to the desired velocity.

And there is no banking in space (aside from possible finacial institutions).

As I think on it, I believe that only Babylon 5 got that bit right with its starfuries.

The Real Me

SPACEMANSPIFF

Monday, July 12, 2004 6:22 AM

Wanted to make a quick point to something mentioned earlier. The Orion Project was, as was stated, basically a bunch of nuclear bombs on the underside of a ship. That is a fission reaction, which takes a heavy element and breaks it into lighter, usually unstable elements and radiation, both of which are dangerous. A fusion drive would take light elements and fuse them into heavier elements, which creates a lot of radiation, but not unstable (i.e., radioactive) elements, and is therefore safer overall.

Not to make this a physics lecture, but does anyone see a seeming physical flaw with these ideas?

Spiff

AMNESIAC

Monday, July 12, 2004 7:46 AM

B]

This is not meant to be hostile, I am merely frustrated.

Sometimes I just want to hit people over the head wit a rock. This is one of those times. I mean no offense but this is the truth.

Whoa. Um. OK.

Interstellar travel and FTL are kind of synonymous, aren’t they? It would take generations to reach even the nearest blue stars. The chances are pretty low that one of Sol’s neighbor stars is this single blue star. We’re talking hundreds of years at near the speed of light to get to the overwhelming majority of the galaxy. On the way they would probably pass thousands or millions of normal yellow stars, and maybe hundreds of terraformable planets.

And FTL isn’t so implausible or exotic an idea really. There are plenty of possible ways to bend space, alter gravitation, or warp time. As Earth died, maybe corporations and governments joined together to scout nearby star systems, build the terraforming equipment to make new homes for humanity, and the FTL ships to take them there. Allot of things that seem normal today would have been unimaginable even a hundred years ago.

I just think the Single Blue Giant theory is a little less interesting, and a little less plausible. This is a story about people on a frontier, making civilization up as they go along. The Galaxy is a much larger frontier. If it’s just one system, even with 70 planets, it’s still much smaller than a galaxy, and has less possibilities.

Oh, and the planet where Blue Sun is based can still have a blue sun. That’s what makes it special. If there was only one blue sun that all the human worlds circle, it would be like a company on Earth calling itself The Sun or The Earth.

How’s this for an obscure reference: The shadow play in the background at the saloon in ‘Heart of Gold’ depicting the exodus from Earth, showed many small ships headed in different directions away from what is clearly planet Earth. They are spreading out, not moving towards a new single place.

I think the intent of the writers is really clear. Mankind in Firefly is expanding through the galaxy; all of it, and general relativity is just too goram inconvenient to address, they leave the how and why of FTL in their universe unexplained. Their universe, though requires FTL travel.

And um, aren’t blows to the head with rocks often fatal? I really don’t think I was off topic, and I had read the other posts. I don’t see how my post would make someone want to murder or wound me. That sounds pretty hostile.

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 9:55 AM

Yes, I agree that the rock-to-the-head comment that somebody made was too harsh. While it's fair to talk about being frustrated, describing the kind of violence that comes to mind is a bit much, I think.

However, I will agree with that poster and say that Faster Than Light travel and interstellar travel are not necessarily the same thing. Speeds of a quarter, or a half, or of 99.999% of the speed of light are possible without invoking FTL travel.

At a mere 0.25 c, humanity can spread 100 light years in 400 years (I'll grant them a century to get the tech ready). There are certainly hundreds, and perhaps thousands of stars in that volume.

I will state that I still support the theory of FTL drive and multiple systems (though perhaps not a galaxy full).

Good point about the little ships flying in all directions away from Earth That Was in the shadow play in Heart of Gold. I missed the possible significance of that.

The Real Me

CREVANREAVER

Monday, July 12, 2004 10:38 AM

Quote:
I just think the Single Blue Giant theory is a little less interesting...

No offense Amnesiac, but I completely disagree with that statement. There is nothing especially interesting about an idea that has been done over and over again for decades such as an entire galaxy open to explore.

The reason so many fans like the Single System Theory is that it is so unique.

For years in almost every work of science fiction involving space travel, the theme has been travel throughout the galaxy. If Firefly takes place in one solar system, that would make it highly original and it would be one of many thing that would distinguish it from all all other scifi.

I for one can't think of any material where its been done before!

And a solar system is a lot bigger than we mere humans realize. There could be a lot more possibilities than you give it credit for. And as for the name of the Blue Sun corporation, it would actually be more like a company calling itself the Yellow Sun corporation, which really isn't all that silly.

CSTEINME

Monday, July 12, 2004 12:04 PM

That scene has bothered me too. I prefer to think that there was a large artistic license taken in that they showed the ships passing in super slow motion to emphasize how close the two ships were to each other. Similar to the artistry of Inara's sponge bath stop motion scene.

PURPLEBELLY

Monday, July 12, 2004 12:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Amnesiac:
the exodus from Earth, showed many small ships headed in different directions

Hoping for verisimilitude in a TV drama is probably too much, but in a shadow play?

ANONYMOUSPOSTERCHILD

Monday, July 12, 2004 12:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Diego:
>1. A large star could hold a large solar system. This covers a >lot of the arguments made. A large star would be blue...hence, >the Blue Sun corp. A large star has a much larger habitable >zone (the volume around the star that roughly recreates Earth->like conditions) that could easily hold 70+ habitable or >terraformable planets/moons.

I like the idea of connecting the Blue Sun Corp with a large, blue star- it's pretty clever. But I don't see any reason inherent to the Single System Hyptohesis that we have to reconcile all 70+ worlds with a single system. The characters visit only a few worlds and some of them they return to multiple times. Maybe some of the planets are in other systems but were colonized independently during the diaspora/exodus period 500 years before and are inaccessible to our BDH. They would know about these sister civilizations by radio and might even keep up a very slow correspondence across the light-years. But there's nor reason that humanity would put all its eggs in one basket- especially after the apprent demise of earth.

If I recall correctly, Mal makes a reference to 50 moons. Now, while this isn't an exact figure, most likely, it would lend stock to the idea that there are very few worlds that aren't moons, and that there are several planets but many moons.

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