Firefly Solar System

POSTED BY: Mahatatain
UPDATED: Thursday, July 1, 2010 14:28
VIEWED: 18911
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GREENFAERIE

Monday, July 27, 2009 6:59 PM

Why there is some confusion on this issue after seven months of there being an official map, I cannot understand.

http://store.quantummechanix.com/Complete-and-Official-Map-of-the-Vers
e_p_54.html

(a.k.a. wydraz)

VILE

Saturday, August 1, 2009 4:06 PM

There's no confusion about the geography - that map has already been mentioned further up the thread. But there are a lot of inconsistencies and physical impossibilities in the geography and history of the the 'Verse.

As I said, best not to think about those. Trying to fix even only the blatantly wrong bits will leave you with an altogether different place.

--
Too young to be an Urvile ...

KRELLEK

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 10:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sister:
really? What's the name of ours? Not to be snarky or anything but does the system on which we (currently) live have a name other THAN the "Solar System?" Do you mean the name of the galaxy? Are we in the Milky Way? AHHHHH where are we????!!!

I believe it has been mentioned in somewhere(possibly in space games, science fiction movies), that our Solar system is called the Sol system, but i am not sure

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 11:46 PM

I heard some thoughts that are interesting elsewhere about this recently.

The rimworlds are the way they are, technology wise, because the coreworlds are reluctant to really help make them nice. This makes the rim mostly dependent on them. It's somewhat similar to the industrialized north and agricultural south in the Civil War.

Similarly, indentured servantry and other things that we've seemed to move past on earth, well, first we haven't actually moved past them all that much, there's still human trafficking in a lot of places for both labour and sex slavery. You might see that die out while people are on the arcs and things were closely monitored, and on the coreworlds, also closely monitored, but out on the rim, there's no oversight and there's also a need for this sort of stuff. So people get away with it.

The gunpowder guns aren't quite gunpowder, I've heard Mal's works by air compression or something, and the show suggests this by having not quite gunpowder sounds with rim weapons. As for why projectile weapons, and lasers and stun weapons are not prevalent in the future, someone else got it, that's been stated outright that it's because of gun control laws.

As for the fashion styles, and why people in 500 years would choose to emulate the dresses and clothing of the 19th century, apparently for a while, there's been a migration from the core that wants to pretend to be cowboys (kind of like Rance Burgess), so the clothing thing might be intentional. It's also possible that some of that might just be easier to make with limited resources and homegrown material.

VILE

Thursday, July 1, 2010 1:34 AM

I am actually trying to put together a physically viable 5-star system on another forum (see link below). It's not impossible, but the terraforming just isn't going to happen - at least not to the "magic" extent it does in the 'Verse. I think I'm going to end up with two shirt-sleeve planets at most, possibly one or two marginals, and the rest of humanity will be living in domes, underground or in space.

And it's BIG. The distances are huge, which is actually a good thing from a plot viewpoint.

http://www.sfrpg.org.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=801&start=0

--
Too young to be an Urvile ...

TWO

Thursday, July 1, 2010 11:39 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Vile:
It's not impossible, but the terraforming just isn't going to happen - at least not to the "magic" extent it does in the 'Verse.

You need super-advanced physics. The best place to learn it is from a science fiction writer. Never go to real physicists because they think reality is complicated and limiting. Kim Stanley Robinson created a perfectly simple reality. Here is a long quote from Robinson's novel The Memory of Whiteness.

“Arthur Holywelkin wrote his Ten Forms of Change, a grand unified theory that proved to be tremendously powerful. Physicists look his work and applied it to the unprecedented amounts of energy available just above the coronal flare zone of the sun. And they found that with their new understanding they could concentrate and transfer that energy from one point to another. And they could contract it to singularities that, within the confines of a spherical discontinuity, pulled inward with gravitational force beyond their apparent mass. Discontinuity physics was the key; the door to the solar system was unlocked. One gee colonies illuminated by projected flares of the sun were established on hundreds of moons and asteroids, and the organic world bloomed everywhere. Millions of people left Earth and Mars for the new worlds, and the age known as the Accelerando began.”

Holywelkin's grand unified theory made possible whitelines and whitesuns, which were essential for terraforming the entire Solar System. The same technology makes the habitable zones around the stars of the Firefly 'Verse as big as you dream.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

VILE

Thursday, July 1, 2010 1:46 PM

Okay, maybe I should have qualified that - it isn't going to happen in my fictional universe ...

Mainly because it's not going to have that level of super-science fiction, and because I actually like space suits and orbital stations.

Hmm, I lost sight of K S Robinson after Mars - I'll have to check out that book. Thanks for the tip.

--
Too young to be an Urvile ...

TWO

Thursday, July 1, 2010 2:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Vile:
...it isn't going to happen in my fictional universe ... mainly because it's not going to have that level of super-science fiction, and because I actually like space suits and orbital stations.

The complete title is The Memory of Whiteness: A Scientific Romance. The romance tells me Robinson wrote it as a fantastical dream of the future, same as parts of Firefly, i.e. four stars orbiting around a fifth called "White Sun" or "Bai Hu". The orbital mechanics of 5 stars would drive a real astronomer slightly crazy but it is easy for TV.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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