Why Firefly deserved to die
POSTED BY: xed
UPDATED: Thursday, December 19, 2024 02:34
VIEWED: 28595
PAGE 8 of 9
Quote:
Originally posted by Xeriar:Quote:
If this is true (old plant and animal biomass
produces oil) why is Titan (a moon of Saturn)
covered in it?
Titan has methane, or natural gas. It's a kind of
oil, sure, if you want to be picky, but it has
nowhere near the fuel efficiency of biomass oils.
By mass methane is the most fuel efficient hydrocarbon...and there is strong speculation that methane isn't the only hydrocarbon on Titan...they just can't see through the methane atmosphere to know at the moment but I guess we will just have to wait until 2004 when cassini drops some probes on it. :)
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Quote:
look at how easy it is to ship things around the planet today...are all the country have the latest technology in everything? NO! So I don't see why it would be different in the future when human has colonised many planet!
Haven't shipped things to other countries very recently, have you? I've ended up making tape-copies for acquaintances and shipping them all over the place in the past year. For most things within the U.S., yeah, it'll get there in three to five business days. Canada? About the same. England? More than a week, for certain. Israel? Two and a half to three weeks, at the least.
And just try shipping something to, say, the boonies in Afghanistan or Kenya. There's no guarantee it's even going to get there, and if it does the person delivering it is almost certainly going to need to pay "border fees" (read: bribes) to those in control of the territory.
Perhaps, however, I have mistaken your intent -- and you're saying "easy" in an ironic manner. That is, it ISN'T easy to ship things to various places on this planet, particularly given the vast differences in tech levels.
History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.
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Quote:
Originally posted by UFO:
As far as 100 rounds in a gun being unrealistic...hardly.
The amount of energy a slug (or any moving object for that matter) has is proportional to it's mass (m) and muzzle velocity (V) squared:
E=0.5mV^2
In fact, the amount of energy a slug has is more sensitive to the muzzle velocity (squared) than the mass). You can make a small deadly bullet by giving it large velocities. I'm sure there's technology in the world of Firefly to provide a sufficient propellant (ie. gun powder).
And the less massive the bullet, the less likely it is to penetrate obstacles or cut through bone. Or, to paraphrase an immortal quote:
"Wow! Now I can flatten light ammo against body armor faster than ever before!"
Quote:
Sorry, too much physics in this post.Point is, again, if they could colonize all these planets and any Joe Blow off the street can buy a ship, certainly they could have better projectile weapons than inefficient, yet reliable, six shooters. Especially since they just came out of a civil war and weapons should be floating all over the black market. Hell, everyone carries a weapon, so they must be plentiful.
Any Joe off the street WITH SUFFICIENT CAPITAL can purchase a ship, which rules out pretty much any of the Joes in the borderworlds. Additionally, given that the Alliance DID just triumph in a Civil War, they're almost certainly going to be cracking down big-time on any suspected advanced-arms deals, simply to insure that they don't have to face a re-armed Independents movement ten years down the road. Many people carry weapons -- but they're low-tech, and certainly not the kind of advanced weaponry that we've seen on Alliance ships (the railgun that took out the Reaver'd ship in Bushwhacked) and in Alliance security (the sonic stunners wielded by the hospital security force in Ariel).
Sure, a person MAY have a high-tech gun and advanced ammunition -- but obtaining that on border worlds where supply ships clearly don't come often and where the general level of technology (something certainly required to manufacture said gun or said ammo) is substantially lower than on the Core worlds is nigh-impossible. Thus, the low-tech projectile weapons.
Besides which -- simply because higher tech exists doesn't necessarily make lower tech that much less effective. Sure, you may have lasers and advanced ferroceramic body armor, but when I shove a sharpened stick thru your eye and into your brain you'll still be dead.
Bottom line -- if you want a gun with a hundred-plus "smart" bullets, advanced ammunition loads, and all the foofaraw you can choke down, be my guest. Of course, it'll be half again the size of a Thompson SMG -- that is, completely unconcealable -- and when you run out of ammo on those oh so low-tech border worlds you'll have a very expensive and rather fragile club. Lead bullets can be cast, and brass cartridges reloaded, and the simpler the mechanism the less likely it is to break down. Just look at the AK-47 -- it's been around for fifty-five years now and it's STILL an effective and dangerous weapon.
History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.
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*sigh*
Hey, LivingImpaired ... do you think they will *ever* stop?
Silverado.
~Ruttin proud Keeper of Mal's boot kicking a certain sucker into a certain hungry engine ( http://www.geocities.com/keeperqueen76).
_________________________________________________
"You had the law on you, criminals and savages... half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded including yourself, and you're harboring known fugitives."
"We're still flying."
"That's not much."
"It's enough."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Silverado:
*sigh*
Hey, LivingImpaired ... do you think they will *ever* stop?
Are we making you crazy, Silverado?
I love these kinds of discussions. I think it's awesome that people have put so much thought into this stuff. I find when I watch the show, I just accept everything but the characters and action as fact. It never occurs to me that something may be off with the technology. So to hear everyone's opinions about what is feasible and what is foolish is very cool. Makes me think more about the show.
Edit: Bob shows her age with words like "AWESOME".
Younger folks: please read "awesome" as whatever the newest hippest slang is for "really good".______________
Simon: It's good. It tastes like.... It's good.
Jayne: It smells like Crotch!
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Quote:
By mass methane is the most fuel efficient hydrocarbon...and there is strong speculation that methane isn't the only hydrocarbon on Titan...they just can't see through the methane atmosphere to know at the moment but I guess we will just have to wait until 2004 when cassini drops some probes on it. :)
True, it is also the -least- space-efficient hydrocarbon,
what with Avagadro's 'hypothesis' and all. Also a
gas at room temperature, which means either pressurization
(added complexity) or serious cooling (ditto) to use
in moving vehicles.
Also keep in mind that ultimately the hydrocarbon chains
that make life have to be cannibalized from something
during the terraforming process. I would imagine
that only so much original methane remains.
Biodeisel is different, however, but that becomes a
food - fuel trade off, I think more recent settlements
would want to go with food first.
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Quote:
Originally posted by bobknaptor:
Edit: Bob shows her age with words like "AWESOME".
I remember when "awesome" still meant "capable of producing a feeling of awe," such as in "Behold God's awesome majesty," and not, "Wow, that was really awesome, dude!" But then, I also remember when Alaska and Hawaii entered the Union.
m.
------------------------------------------------
"But ... not boring, like she made it sound." Wash, in ARIEL
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Quote:
Originally posted by Silverado:
*sigh*
Hey, LivingImpaired ... do you think they will *ever* stop?
Considering how long I've been here, and how much these discussions have gone nowhere, I'm guessing "no." God, how many posts are in the "My Theory on Guns in Firefly" thread by now. I have a high speed connection, and that thread takes a while to load.
________________
Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to enjoy the moment.
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I'm starting to feel more and more like one of the troika from last season's Buffy as I read/respond to these threads...
______________
But ... everyone knows... if the width of a wormhole cavity is a whole number of wavelengths, plus a fraction of that wavelength? The coinciding particle activity collapses the infrastructure.
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