system or galaxy - what are the facts?

POSTED BY: Tiger
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 21:46
VIEWED: 23608
PAGE 1 of 1

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!

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
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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..."

SERGEANTX

Thursday, July 8, 2004 8:55 PM

It was the not-quite-finished version of the pilot that Fox decided was too slow. Someone leaked it out over the internet before the series started. Not much was different really. The soundtrack was just stand-in tracks borrowed from other movies, a couple of scenes had minor differences. The video quality was pretty bad though. It seemed like someone had copied it to .avi from a vhs tape, a worn out videotape at that.

The intro went like this:

Quote:
The War to Unite the Planets was six years done and the victorious Alliance was spreading its control further and further throughout the galaxy.

Those who had fought for independence and so bloodily lost had no choice but to live by Alliance law.

Some never would and those few found themselves drifting, flying to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, to the worlds less civilized - some barely settled - where the Alliance might not control their lives.

These were hard worlds, and work was where you found it. Those who got by lived by a simple creed.

Any job, anywhere.

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

FORRESTWOLF

Thursday, July 8, 2004 10:25 PM

Well, it looks like we'll put the Gliese version of events, with some Independent-tailored language, into the Nightfire Player's Guide. Seems to be a hit with the others working on it :)

I'll be sure to give credit to appropriate people...

Forrestwolf
Nightfire: Neverwinter Nights Firefly

CREVANREAVER

Thursday, July 8, 2004 11:37 PM

Forrestwolf, where is the Nightfire Player's Guide, what's the web address?

ROCKETJOCK

Friday, July 9, 2004 5:29 AM

Just a few observations:

1. The opening narrations aren't preserved on the box set, so I assume Joss doesn't consider them cannonical. Just as well, as they're contradictory anyway.

2. The blue hands guy's line about traveling 86 million miles has no real context -- If I'm investigating something in Sacramento and I have to drop everything to fly to San Jose on a dubious lead, I might gripe about "having to fly a hundred and fifty miles", but it doesn't mean I can't hop a jet to Shanghai the next morning. Annoyance is relative.

3. Barring a definative statement from Joss on the subject, or new data from the BDM or its (hopefully multiple) sequels, we're all making an awful lot of soup from one mouse...

For the record, I'm a "multiple systems" man myself, but I'm not dogmatic on the subject. As with Jubal Harshaw's feelings on religions, "Each choice, wholly paradoxical, avoids the paradoxes of the other."

"You can't enslave a free man. The most you can do is kill him." -- Robert A. Heinlein

RANGRBOB

Friday, July 9, 2004 6:45 AM

This may have been brought up but if you read the description of the movie on serenitymovie.com it refers multiple times to galaxy.
1. Browncoats are forced to live as galactic outcasts.
2. Captain Malcolm Reynolds is a hardened veteran on the losing side of a galactic civil war,
3. A small band of them skim the outskirts of the galaxy
I don't know how offical they are but there they are.

LJSQUARED

Friday, July 9, 2004 7:46 AM

I've always liked the idea of a compromise between both. A cluster of stars perhaps 5-10 light years in diameter. We could then have a situation where ships travel close to the speed of light but not beyond it, this is theoreticaly possible (the problem is stopping).
So when the crew refer to the "galaxy" it really means known galaxy.
My main reason for not liking the system idea is there simply wouldn't be enough planets or moons. My main reason for not liking the whole galaxy idea is that FTL just doesn't seem to fit in Firefly. This is a good way for ex-trekkies (who simply must know these things) to deal with the ambiguity in Firefly.

FORRESTWOLF

Friday, July 9, 2004 1:36 PM

Crevanreaver -

The address for the whole module, which includes the Player's Guide, is (not referred to as Nightfire there, by the way - that's new):

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/data/1080769905000.shtml

It's about 1.6 MB, zipped, because it includes the NWN module as well as the player's guide pdf.

The current version doesn't include your history - we're working on that now - it's got 'Browncoat' language added, as if an old Independent were telling the story on his back porch to a young 'un. We'll be uploading that soon.

If you really just want the player's guide, it's on my Yahoo group web site:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/fireflynwn/

(but thanks to Yahoo, you've got to request to join the group :(

Rangrbob - I noticed that first thing on the official site - really got me down - but I think it's more of Joss not deciding (the review of the movie I've read indicated 'solar system' language was still in when the author read their unofficial copy of the script).
- Forrestwolf
Nightfire: Neverwinter Nights Firefly

BARNSTORMER

Friday, July 9, 2004 1:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BarnStormer:
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

OK, no responses on this observation/theory?

Helllloooooooooooo
Is anyone out there?

If I'm way off base, then tell me.

I'm a large, semi muscular man.....I can take it.

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

BarnStormer

PURPLEBELLY

Friday, July 9, 2004 2:02 PM

I think Firefly, as a SciFi-Western, is about science fiction like Wagon Train was about pioneering and Rawhide was about cattle. Please don't stop discussing everything that can be based on the show, but I guess all the writers were Arts majors, so don't lean too heavily on them

CREVANREAVER

Saturday, July 10, 2004 8:39 AM

Quote:
we'll put the Gliese version of events, with some Independent-tailored language, into the Nightfire Player's Guide

I found some information on Gliese 876, which is actually a real solar system.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980626.html

Since, it is real and does not actually have three stars, I was thinking perhaps you guys should make it a different solar system for the Nightfire Player's Guide. Maybe Gliese 877?

SPACEMANSPIFF

Saturday, July 10, 2004 8:42 AM

Thisd has to be one of my favorite discussions when it comes to Firefly. I've posted my opinions a few times before, but what's one more?

I should mention first that I am an astronomer, for what it's worth.

I'm a fan of the "one system" theory. I think it's a relatively new idea in sci-fi, after the "we run around the galaxy" stuff has been done. A lot of people don't grasp the enormity of space, and it's difficult to wrap one's mind around the sizes in our own solar system.

Here's some thoughts...

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. Example: An G-type star (Sol) has a habitable zone from about 0.85-2.0 AU, encompasing Venus, Earth and Mars. An A-type star (Sirius, ~7 lyrs. away) would have a habitable zone from about 1.5-3.6 AU, a >3x increase in area. Add to this the fact that very large gas giants emit a great deal of heat due to gravitational collapse, which can warm up a moon (and does around Jupiter), and your habitable zone can increase further. Each of the large gas giants could hold many livable moons, and that could be what the term "system" in-show describes. A large star would be easy to find, measure, and aim for (large gravity well) from Earth.

2. Serenity is never shown in non-Einsteinian space. This is very arguable...who knows what FTL travel looks like? The "hard burn" was done in atmosphere, and I don't think something designed to boost a ship to >c could be done in atmo. Fusion is the best explanation of the drives, given what we've seen of the ship in action.

3. The sector argument: Dividing a disk from the orbit of Venus to the orbit of Saturn into 50 sectors makes each sector about 1.27x10^17 km, or roughly the entire area inside the Earth's orbit. While most of that is empty space, the Alliance could easily have hundreds of sectors in a large solar system, and still have Reavers, smugglers and criminals all over the place running free.

Aside from mentions of the galaxy and the universe in dialog (which I mark up to slang use), I've never seen or heard any good reasons or evidence for a galaxy-wide civilization in Firefly.

I really like the history given above, and I think the star cluster theory is a very interesting one. The biggest problem there is that star clusters such as binary and quad systems greatly decrease the chances of a solar system forming.

Spiff

SLOWSMURF

Saturday, July 10, 2004 9:26 AM

The only reason the sector arguement is given is that planets constantly move, thus having stationary sectors would be impossible. Having crazy moving sectors would also be quite odd, unless they were based off a single planet or something. However, having someone "8 sectors away from his jourisdiction" based purely on a planetary system seems a bit iffy.

CAM

Saturday, July 10, 2004 9:29 AM

I haven't read most of this discussion, but in the pilot doesn't the first guy who tries to sell book passage say something like "we're going all across the spiral"?

Nevermind, he says "outer rings"...not really conclusive in either case.

CREVANREAVER

Saturday, July 10, 2004 6:47 PM

Another good reason for the One System Theory is the politics of it.

Think about it, why would the Alliance be willing to go to war over a bunch of colonies spread throughout the galaxy, or at least a few lightyears away. However, if they were in the same solar system as the central planets then it makes much more sense. Then they're closer to home and the action of those colonies definitely have greater affects on the entire Alliance, therefore they needed to control them.

DEWSHINE

Saturday, July 10, 2004 9:55 PM

there are very good arguments on both sides. Politics should play into the answer as well.
Is the allience more like the British empire at her height or more like China? The main difference being of course that Britian looked out at the ocean and said "that is mine, all mine" and China even at the height of power said "leave me alone, and don't touch my vassals either". Colonies in close by solar systems would be attractive to the former mindset and colonies in the same system would be attractive to the latter. Anyone have clues to the political mindset here? I almost think its more of a "British" flavor myself but the fact that China is a central partner and has centuries old emperial history (like thousands of years here)that even the current political climate cannot blow off also gives the views much weight.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, July 10, 2004 10:35 PM

I have always supported the one system theory. For one thing they describe the “hard burn” in one of the commentaries as a “fusion explosion behind the ship” Now I understand the idea of an external combustion engine such as this, though I’m not sure if it would work in space, and it doesn’t surpass lightspeed.

A external combustion engine just lets you ride a shockwave, I don’t know what kind of shockwave can exist in space, but the idea seems pretty simple.

Also we can see the ship move away when it shoots off. If it moved faster than light wouldn’t it disappear? I don’t know the way it works, but if in one second it is two light seconds away seems like there should be a gap there. Would seem that it should at least appear distorted.

Then there’s the fact that we see the reaver ship move by slowly, I assume this is because their relative speeds are slow even though compared to their points of origin they are moving quite fast. But last I checked something moving at the speed of light always seems to be moving at the speed of light. That wouldn’t allow for a slow passing.

Further we all know that 70 habitable bodies is possible in one system, but doesn’t it seem small for a “whole galaxy”?

-

I don’t remember most of what I knew about this. But all evidence I have seen seems to point to one system.

SLOWSMURF

Saturday, July 10, 2004 11:32 PM

They passed slowly because of a glaring and obvious technical error(that they admit even). That is not proof/evidence either way.

SPACEMANSPIFF

Sunday, July 11, 2004 12:29 AM

If a sector was defined as, say, "100,000 km radius around a planet it might work. But I see your point...there is no good way to make a planet-centered sector cover the entire solar system all the time. But maybe they don't need to? Maybe the only areas the Alliance are concerned with are around planets. I mean, almost everyone would have to come to one eventually, and it's the unguarded empty space in between that allows Reavers and smugglers to exist.

I think the big problem with using the visual effects as hard science evidence for any of the theories is that the visuals are never going to be completely correct. If they were, they would suck as visual effects.

A fusion drive wouldn't create a rideable shock wave, per se, but it does create so much radiative energy that that energy can be used for propulsion, the way we use chemical rockets now.

I think Joss would have had to make at least a general decision on this point. He may obscure it for the fans, but he has an idea of how large a volume Firefly takes place in.

Spiff

CREVANREAVER

Sunday, July 11, 2004 12:51 PM

Quote:
I think Joss would have had to make at least a general decision on this point. He may obscure it for the fans, but he has an idea of how large a volume Firefly takes place in.

I'm sure there will be hints as to whether or not Fireflyverse takes place in a single system or the entire galaxy in "Serenity." I've just got my fingers crossed the hollywood execs didn't pressure Joss into going the typical and overused route of the whole galaxy.

Unfortunately some of the promos I've read on the web lead me to believe my worst fear might be true.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Sunday, July 11, 2004 7:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SlowSmurf:
They passed slowly because of a glaring and obvious technical error(that they admit even). That is not proof/evidence either way.

You have a choice to make, do you trust the show or not? If you trust the show than you have to take everything, even admitted errors, as canon.

The exceptions are mics in camera and floating rocks.

That was a fairly significant scene, it would screw up a lot if we take it as an error. So instead we have to make up an explanation for it. The only one I can come up is that the relative speeds were slow.

There is a lot like that in both tv and in movies. Now they actually have to digitally add in some of the shadows of lightsabers in Star Wars. It was a glaring technical error to have a glowing thing leave not a glow, but a shadow. It was a glaring technical error. Now it’s a part of the movies and figures prominently in every theory of what a lightsaber really is.

In some cases this can’t be done, like all of the things with sound in space, but in this case there is a perfectly sensible explanation, so why ruin it by dismissing it as a piece of crap-science?

Quote:
Originally posted by SpacemanSpiff:
I think the big problem with using the visual effects as hard science evidence for any of the theories is that the visuals are never going to be completely correct. If they were, they would suck as visual effects.

Of course, but if we don't use what we see what do we use?

HOBBES

Sunday, July 11, 2004 7:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
For one thing they describe the “hard burn” in one of the commentaries as a “fusion explosion behind the ship"

Does that remind anyone else of Project Orion?

If not then it was a 60's (I think) project to bypass the whole chemical engine inefficency thing by basically creating a spaceship with a big dumbbell for a back end. Then you drop a series of nuclear bombs in the dumbbell and viola you get moving pretty fast.

Of course there was the whole multiple nuclear detonations in the atmosphere bit so it never got off the ground.

-------------------------------------------------
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May you be in heaven an hour before
The Devil knows you’re dead.

ANONYMOUSPOSTERCHILD

Sunday, July 11, 2004 8:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hobbes:
Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
For one thing they describe the “hard burn” in one of the commentaries as a “fusion explosion behind the ship"

Does that remind anyone else of Project Orion?

If not then it was a 60's (I think) project to bypass the whole chemical engine inefficency thing by basically creating a spaceship with a big dumbbell for a back end. Then you drop a series of nuclear bombs in the dumbbell and viola you get moving pretty fast.

Of course there was the whole multiple nuclear detonations in the atmosphere bit so it never got off the ground.

-------------------------------------------------
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May you be in heaven an hour before
The Devil knows you’re dead.

ACtually, there are experiments involving fusion propulsion right now, and they are significantly different from project Orion. They do off a very high-propulsion speed, but to construct one would leave us with a hugh, bulky, highly-radioactive engine.

GUNRUNNER

Sunday, July 11, 2004 8:22 PM

Yep Orion Drives have been compaired to the Firefly Engine several times. Ofcourse on Firefly ships can have both Jet Engines and Orion/Fusion Engines so a spaceship dosn't leave a trail of radation when taking off.

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AMNESIAC

Sunday, July 11, 2004 9:09 PM

Have a couple friendly disputes with the whole single system theory. If they don't have interstellar travel, how did they get to this new single star system? Also a single star system would be much easier to observe by the alliance than a huge portion of interstellar space. With current technology, we can observe objects as big as alliance cruisers (asteroids) from hundreds of millions of miles away. Also a single star with all of humanity orbiting around it is huge, but it is a much smaller frontier than the entire galaxy. I think the one system plan just makes it more difficult to tell the Serenity/Firefly story. It also, in my mind, makes the suspension of disbelief a little less suspensiony. We know one star system relatively well, and we know that in the middle of it is a pretty average star. We look up and see billions of stars just like this one. This star system has maybe two out of eight and ½ planets capable of supporting life, and the second one is Mars, and quite frankly it’s a big mostly if not entirely dead desert. So I think that Einstein is taking a little nap, and that Serenity is traveling faster than the speed of light via technology that is as mundane to the crew as the internal combustion engine is to us. I mean they’re already beating the laws of physics with a baseball bat with the whole artificial gravity thing. It takes a rock the size of a planet to generate a gravity field of 1g in this universe, and the shuttles on serenity have no problem with it. There really are stars up there, with vast distances between them, and little balls of dirt like earth circling around them. To keep the show/BDM grounded why not use what’s already there, and in Buffy/Angel writer speak; the flabotanum (I hope that’s how it’s spelled) is faster than light travel. We haven’t heard the characters talk about it, because the writers don’t know how it could conceivably work without getting all ‘reverse tachyon beam’ on us. The science of course isn’t what’s important, but it is the back drop the characters play in front of. The more detailed and down to earth out the back ground, the easier it is to believe the story. I find it easier to ignore the Einstein’s relativity loophole than the restructuring of what we know about solar systems and space loophole. Plus it’s bigger, more mysterious, and more exiting to have the frontier be something as big and open as a galaxy.

DIEGO

Sunday, July 11, 2004 11:26 PM

>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.

SLOWSMURF

Sunday, July 11, 2004 11:55 PM

Uh....because the ship was moving slower than they would walk almost?

Yeah, thats good for interplanety travel. I think they would've siply turned the reaver ship around(or serenity, same thing) had they thought this through ahead of time, but they did not. There is no way to justify it, it was a technical error plain and simple.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Sunday, July 11, 2004 11:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Amnesiac:
Have a couple friendly disputes with the whole single system theory. If they don't have interstellar travel, how did they get to this new single star system?

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.

Haven't you listened to anything that was said? No one said they interstellar travel. They said they were incapable of FTL travel. The question becomes the time span involved.

This has been discussed many times and there are many possible explanations. Let's just name two:
1 They (the population of earth) were cryogenically frozen and moved there on a sleepership. As far as they are concerned when they wake up no time has passed. It would be odd, to say the least, for them to suddenly decide that centuries have passed, especially considering that time is relative.

2 While we’re talking about relativity, what if they had really fast ships? Moving near the speed of light. Well in this case not much time would pass for them now would it? No. Not much time at all. So even though they may travel hundreds of lightyears slower than light hundreds of years wouldn’t pass for them.

HONEY

Monday, July 12, 2004 2:14 AM

This discussion has brought up an issue that's bothered me since I first saw the pilot, and since it involves Reavers, I'm hoping it will be addressed in the BDM.

In introducing reavers to us, two 'facts' were given, 1) that reavers are men who've gone mad 'on the edge of space,' and 2) that every year, reavers are pushing out more and more. After Zoe makes this last statement, Mal says, "It's getting crowded in my sky."

Which is it? Are the reavers on "the edge of space" (an image of the outer rim of the system comes to mind), or are they in between the core and the outer colonies? Maybe "the edge of space" refers to the edge of civilized space, i.e., the core of the system? This second interpretation fits the facts better, especially if you consider space to be a very large place, and well, they gotta eat. It would make more sense for them to operate in space where there are more victims to encounter.

What's everyone else's take on this?

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 3:01 AM

As far as the relative velocity between Serenity and the Reaver ship in the pilot, we are talking RELATIVE velocity. These two ships could quite possibly be zooming very quickly across space relative to some planets in orbit, but RELATIVE TO EACH OTHER they could be rather slow. This works especially well if we assume that they are heading more or less in the same direction.

But they were clearly travelling at right angles to each other, right? We saw it!

Not necessarily. True, they were moving at perhaps a handful of miles per HOUR with respect to each other, but what if they were both moving at ten miles per SECOND with respect to Patience's home? That would make their courses nearly identical in speed and direction.

That's my bogus explanation, anyway. Frankly, I think the writers/directors/producers did something lame in order to build dramatic suspense.

As far as the System vs Galaxy debate, I'm quite convinced that Joss doesn't care, and perhaps doesn't even understand the difference between one system, several systems, a galaxy, and a universe.

But let's work with what we have.

The most telling episode for me regarding this debate is Out Of Gas. In a single solar system, it is unlikely that you can be "out of range" of a radio signal. Oh, you could wonder if anyone will be looking your way. But I don't think a reasonable radio would be out of range. If you are caught in between systems, however, then the radio signal could take years to get to anyone.

Also, the earlier Mal talks to Zoe about no matter how far the arm of the Alliance reaches, they can always go a little bit farther.

This doesn't work. Even if you assume that the sun is blue and therefore hotter and with a bigger life zone, you will run into a finite border beyond which you cannot reasonably go. The outer planets, even of a blue sun, will be covered with nitrogen snow or something. Uninhabitable.

For me, FTL travel and psychic powers are no more amazing than artificial gravity, and I see no reason to swallow the one and balk at the others as "unrealistic".

I think that we are dealing with, perhaps not a galaxy, but perhaps a few tens of star systems. That makes the most sense to me.

The Real Me

HELL'S KITTEN

Monday, July 12, 2004 4:29 AM

I have two things to add. Kinda minor, but here they are:

1) This isn't directly related to the topic, but I've always wondered this: What is considered "canon"? Is it the episode transcripts? The DVD episodes with the deleted scenes? Shooting scripts? Any number of the various writer's draft iterations? Outlines? Beat sheets? How far is appropriate for "canon"? Cuz I have an awful lot of those things and have seen some of what could be called more 'definitive' answers. But if these aren't considered "canon," there's not much point in bringing it up.

2) If it were a multi-system kinda 'verse, wouldn't it have been a bit risky for Tracey to mail himself to Mal & Zoe? I mean, how would Tracey have known to which Post Office in all the 'verse to mail himself? Aside from the fact that Mal avoids the Core Planets, of course. (Personally, I think that was just a story telling device and not too much shoulda been read into it.)

Okay, well fine, three things.

3) While I tried to read most of these posts, I may have missed this, sorry; feel free to slap me around if it's already been discussed. Has anyone taken into account in their opinion the fact that it took 6 months to get from Persephone ("Shindig") to Jiangyin ("Safe")? I'm really not sure what that means to either side of the argument. Just curious what ya think, is all.

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.

DIEGO

Monday, July 12, 2004 1:31 PM

>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.

I said 70 "worlds" in order to avoid just that question. However my explanation would still hold whether there were 50 moons of 50 planets, as long as most of them are scattered in different star systems. My main point is that Mal doesn't have to be able to visit all these celestial orbs to know of their existence (and presumably to know that the meek have "inherited not a one of them").

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 2:41 PM

Purplebelly,

All we have to work with are tiny bits and pieces, subtle hints that most likely were not intentionally included.

Please do not make the mistake of waving about the subtle hints that support your position and trivializing the subtle hints that do not.

The Real Me

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 3:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by CrevanReaver:

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!

The anime series Cowboy Bebop takes place in one solar system (ours). Of course, you might decide to not take a "cartoon" seriously, but really, it is great stuff.

The Real Me

PURPLEBELLY

Monday, July 12, 2004 3:26 PM

Fair enough, TheRealMe. I guess we just find interest in different rabbit holes

GUNRUNNER

Monday, July 12, 2004 5:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THEREALME:
Quote:
Originally posted by CrevanReaver:

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!

The anime series Cowboy Bebop takes place in one solar system (ours). Of course, you might decide to not take a "cartoon" seriously, but really, it is great stuff.

The Real Me

Didn't "Star Hunter" take place only in the Sol System?

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CYBERSNARK

Monday, July 12, 2004 6:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THEREALME:
The anime series Cowboy Bebop takes place in one solar system (ours). Of course, you might decide to not take a "cartoon" seriously, but really, it is great stuff.

Same for Gundam Wing (in fact, fairly deep in our system --Zechs & Noin think Mars is a distant getaway). In fact there's a great deal of talk later in the series (and in the movie, Endless Waltz) of calculating vectors, thrust, and using decaying orbits to plot intercept points.

And Quatre has mastered the art of steering by blowing up strategic portions of his ship while keeping the engines at full-burn.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

CREVANREAVER

Monday, July 12, 2004 6:51 PM

OK, OK! Starhunter and this Cowboy Bebop cartoon both took place exclusively in the Sol system.

I'm not familiar with Cowboy Bebop so I can't comment on that. However, from what I know about Starhunter, it didn't involve much terraforming.

What I wrote about how one solar system would make Firefly unique is that it would be various Earth-like planets in a single system.

I can't think of any series where that was the focus of the show, however if you guys can, please let me know.

DRYGUYSTOPHER

Monday, July 12, 2004 7:20 PM

Danfan, this is a point I've been thinking of for a while. I think everyone looking for a one-system or galaxy answer should think about it:

Quote:

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?

I agree with Danfan. Clearly there must be limitations to travel. Personally, I think Serenity travels at sub-light speeds. In my opinion it is possible that FTL travel exists in the Firefly 'verse. But if it does exists the alliance would keep it to itself or possibly, it's so difficult and expensive that few can afford a FTL ship.

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 8:30 PM

Okay, Cowboy Bebop. I don't have an axe to grind about this series, it's just one that takes place in one system and has a number of terraformed earthlike worlds.

After a disaster that made Earth less habitable... "Nothing good comes from Earth anymore"... the folks in that series terraformed Venus, Mars, and at least one of the moons of Jupiter to have more or less earthlike conditions.

They also had what seemed to be hyperspace gates that allowed quick transit among the bodies of the solar system, but which was never used for interstellar trips.

The Real Me

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 9:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:

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?

We are plagued with warring assumptions. My own feeling is that Earth That Was is not lost, it is just used up. Yes, they could travel back to Earth. There is just no purpose.

The single system terraforming of 70+ worlds implies the ability to terraform rather small bodies and perhaps even move their orbits into the life zone of the star. Or else it assumes an extraordinary number of large bodies orbiting in a star's life zone.

On the other hand, the multiple star system terraforming of 70+ worlds might only be able to start with worlds very close in size and mass and other features to the Earth.

And to head off the "moon" discussion before it starts up again, a moon is only a body that orbits a larger non-stellar body. It implies nothing about size. A moon can be as large or larger than Earth, as long as the body it orbits is larger still.

Now, making the assumption that Earth can be terraformed back into something useful seems right IF you assume that one CAN terraform a lifeless barren rock at the edge of the habitable zone.

But that makes an assumption about how good their terraforming tech is.

To be fair, I will add that someone (Zoid, I think?) once pointed out a quote from Zoe that clearly implied the ability to alter a world's gravity as part of terraforming. This might lead to a near magical super-terraforming capability, but if you can do that, I feel that the universe would feel and be much different from what we have seen.

That's my $2.00.

The Real Me

TIGER

Monday, July 12, 2004 10:06 PM

SYSTEM OR GALAXY - PROBLEM SOLVED

After reading all the posts (most of which are wild speculation, wishful thinking, or attempts to justify a speculative fiction story with real science), I realized I would just have to watch the DVDs again.

I started this thread hoping to find facts that showed the writer's intentions for the Firefly 'verse, and I'm glad to report I have:

Quote:
Originally posted by ZEKE023:
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.

MYSTERY SOLVED!! This thread can now officially end. :-)

---------------------------------------------
...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.

THEREALME

Monday, July 12, 2004 10:22 PM

But Tiger, I was just getting going!

I have no doubt that you have the REAL answer, but I'd rather not end the thread...

The Real Me

TIGER

Monday, July 12, 2004 10:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THEREALME:
I have no doubt that you have the REAL answer, but I'd rather not end the thread...

All in good fun.

---------------------------------------------
...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.

WYDRAZ

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 2:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tiger:
So the answer is: whatever you want it to be.

Except that this is a group seeking an answer. So perhaps it needs to be "whatever we all want it to be." That, or "Joss said it's this..."

Perhaps it will be resolved in the BDM, but if not, it would be beneficial to come to a consensus (impossible?) or get an official answer for those of us that want to write, or roleplay, or game in the Firefly universe.

I don't mind leaving it all up to the individual, as it is, I love Firefly and have fun filling in the gaps myself. And maybe every other person's story or game can assume either One System or One Galaxy, or invent an entirely new solution, but this seems messy to me. We all can't ignore this very basic issue forever.

Oh, and play Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. http://digital-eel.com/sais

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 5:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Amnesiac:
1 Interstellar travel and FTL are kind of synonymous, aren’t they?

No.

Quote:
2 It would take generations to reach even the nearest blue stars.

Not really.

Quote:
3 And um, aren’t blows to the head with rocks often fatal?

Often, but not usually. It’s actually an expression. To take it literally would be a mistake.

Quote:
4 I really don’t think I was off topic

I didn't say you were.

Quote:
5 I had read the other posts.

Look at the quote I have labeled 2. If you had read the other posts you would know that this is not necessarily the case. As such the fact you said it causes me to doubt that you have read the posts.

The idea that travel between stars a slower than light speeds would take a long time is based on the idea of absolute time. This is odd, to say the least, as there is no such thing.

For example, lets say you move at near the speed of light. Time almost stops for you, the closer you go to lightspeed the slower it goes. If you got close enough to it practically no time would pass for you at all. Why then would you say that a long time had passed when it so clearly hadn’t?

Another example:

You are on a sleepership. Everyone is cryogenically frozen like River was. You go to sleep one day, you wake up the next. You are at your destination. For the ship a lot of time has passed but not for you. For you it is one day, after all if you don’t base time on your perception what do you base it on? The time that passed on the ship? The time that passed on earth? These two things are different, as said there is no absolute time. So how do you chose?

The most logical explanation is you don’t. If you were six years old when you went in you are six years old when you come out because you haven’t aged a day.

In both of these it does not take generations. In both of these there is no FTL travel. Both of these have been brought up before. Why then would you state as fact something that these disprove if you had read them?

SIKKUKUT

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 9:49 AM

Wow, this is getting ugly.

I don't think I like comparing artificial gravity and FTL. Somebody did well to point out that it takes an Earth-sized mass to generate 1 gravity, but it also takes a relatively insignificant amount of acceleration. That's a huge range of energy requirements that an artificial gravity field will fall somewhere within... in other words, meaningless.

Warping space enough to actually break it, on the other hand, is insanely hard. I seem to recall reading something about 2 metal plates with roughly Earth's diameter, held rigid a few meters apart and charged many times greater than the power output of our entire civilization, being enough to create a wormhole.

I'll buy that giant gleaming Starfleet (or Alliance?) ships could, with undreamt of technology probably linked to artificial gravity fields, possibly do this. But a little junker like Serenity (all pardons to Kaylee)? Civilian merchants with access to that kind of power output? Seems unlikely to me. And more than unlikely, out of flavor.

Note the lack of sci-fi trappings. No aliens. No transporters/teleporters. No space battles. No sound in space. Heavy emphasis on the possible, it seems to me. If FTL exists in this universe, then it is (correct me if I'm wrong) the ONLY overt contradiction of existing physics. I simply don't buy it.

Of course, the real secret behind artificial gravity in Firefly is that ships that spin for gravity look silly (and can't land) and microgravity scenes are very difficult to film. And the real secret behind this whole debate is, as others have mentioned, that it doesn't matter.

The Joss, if he's watching, is either sitting back and laughing hysterically that we're debating this at such length, or glowering at us for wasting time worrying about something that he obviously went to great lengths to downplay and leave ambiguous.

I don't for a second, however, buy the argument that he didn't think about it. It should be clear by now that he thought about every aspect of this show in painstaking detail. The man is intelligent, creative, and savvy, and seems to have a penchant for deep backstories. He wouldn't-- couldn't, I'd say-- create a universe with such a gaping hole in it.

When I was first watching the show, it bugged me that they seemed to cross interstellar distances without even mentioning it. Then it dawned on me that maybe they WEREN'T crossing interstellar distances. Let's face it, going that far and necessarily using non-Einsteinian space to do it would be such important parts of every day life that not mentioning them would simply be clumsy. Designing a universe where you don't need to go that far would be elegant.

Look at the rest of Firefly-- and I'm talking overt facts, not minor technical blunders like relative velocities and being able to see the freakin' laser beam (very disappointing)-- Look at the rest of the Firefly 'Verse and tell me whether it goes for the fantastic or the realistic, the mundane or the original, the clumsy or the elegant.

Ehh? Ehh?

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

RELFEXIVE

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 10:54 AM

Firstly... unless you can accelerate to near lightspeed instantaneously, it will take time to reach that speed. And since we're talking about slowly increasing relativistic time dilation as the speed increases, we can only be talking about local i.e. ship time. So on the ship, it will take a lot of (local) time to accelerate and decelerate, probably much more than the time taken to actually travel at the desired PSL, presuming they don't employ the "flip over halfway" principle that works at more sedate speeds.

For Earth time, it would take much longer, and there's no "appear to" about it. In the Earth frame of reference, a long time would pass. And since it's Earth financing this thing, too long (for them) could mean too risky. So from a "resources/financing/will to do it" perspective, how long it takes by Earth reckoning is very important. Who wants to spend the money required for a high PSL sleepership when it might take centuries to profit from it?

And secondly, let's not forget that cryogenic suspension does not magically halt time, it only preserves you better by effectively almost-killing you and freezing you for a very long time. Presuming it works, of course, and the ice crystals in your cells don't rupture them and kill you or, in the case of brain cells, make you an idiot or a vegetable.

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 1:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RelFexive:
For Earth time, it would take much longer, and there's no "appear to" about it. In the Earth frame of reference, a long time would pass. And since it's Earth financing this thing, too long (for them) could mean too risky. So from a "resources/financing/will to do it" perspective, how long it takes by Earth reckoning is very important. Who wants to spend the money required for a high PSL sleepership when it might take centuries to profit from it?

Now I'm confused. No one is left on earth. It says the whole race got up and left. So who would care about earth time? It might take centuries on earth, but no one is there. Also the profit intended is saving the species, which would, from the perspective of the people, happen almost immediately.

Quote:
And secondly, let's not forget that cryogenic suspension does not magically halt time, it only preserves you better by effectively almost-killing you and freezing you for a very long time. Presuming it works, of course, and the ice crystals in your cells don't rupture them and kill you or, in the case of brain cells, make you an idiot or a vegetable.

No one said it did halt time. Read the post again. What it said is that it halts your perception of time. Humans base things on their perception. If all of the people on earth were cryogenically frozen for ten years (don’t ask why, it’s hypothetical) they would not all claim to be ten years older. If the last birthday you celebrated was your 31st the next you celebrate will be your 32nd. This is because people base things on their perception.

They would have to change the date to reflect the time that had passed, there are important things that require an accurate calendar, but otherwise they would go on as if no time had passed at all.

Now with earth long gone in Firefly there would be no need to change the calendar so if you went into cryogenic suspension on the 23 of May 2213 you would come out on the 24 of May 2213. This is not saying that only one night has passed, it is saying that all of the days in between would not be given a date as they don’t matter to the people.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 1:15 PM

I was going to explain the expression “sometimes I want to hit someone over the head with a rock” as it has a lot of meaning to it and is not at all hostile. However I decided to leave it at this: it is meant to evoke repeated frustration directed at no particular person.

I thought it was more important to deal with that frustration than explain the tool I used to try to show it. I’m frustrated by the fact that people, multiple people, don’t seem to read the posts of others and repeat the same arguments over and over again. There is no need to say a theory, fact or conclusion one more than once.

Instead it would be better if we only repeated things to refute them or defend them, in which case we should present new information.

I propose that we do this, starting now. First we should put all of the facts, theories and conclusions in one place. After which we should not repeat them instead only adding new information.

-

On the chance that people agree I’ll start this off by stating things off the top of my head that either support or do not contradict (though they have been said to contradict) the one system theory, others should add to this but not repeat what is said. Someone, preferably someone who supports it, should present the things that support the multiple system theory.

After this people should not restate what is stated in these posts. If they do not have a stated reason to dispute something they should take it as fact. The only reason anything here should be revisited is disputing it or refuting as dispute with it. In either case new arguments should be presented.

-

First off we know that a single star can support more than 70 “earths”. As such it would be nice if people stop saying it can’t. If a single star can do it than a multiple star single system could also do it. This covers both variations of the single system theory.

Second interstellar travel does not require faster than light transportation. Nor does it necessarily take generations. (Sleeper ships is my bet, time dilation could to it too.)

Third we know that there are central planets, often known as core worlds. These are the most advanced worlds and thus the most likely to have been colonized first (otherwise how would the get so much more advanced?)

In a multiple system theory there is no center.

If they all went off in different directions than we could call the center earth, but we have evidence that there are non central planets in “short range” of central ones implying that they may be in the same system. Further the most likely way to start a system is to begin with one planet. It then only makes sense to move to others in the same system. As such many, if not all, first planets would have secondary planets radiating out from it. It would make no sense to call the earlier planets central in this case because there would, at least sometimes, be non core worlds between them.

If they went in one direction, starting in one system. They likely chose the closest one that they could teraform. (It has been suggested by a multiple system believer that this goes against the one system idea, I’ll show later why it doesn’t.) Therefore it seems unlikely that they would go back in a direction that they know is devoid of any teraformable planets. This would make the systems used move outward in a largely sideways direction. The first and most advanced planets would not be central, they could be on one side.

In a single system there is a center, in fact central planets is a term that exists today referring to a single system.

The central planets in our own system are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. (If memory serves they are actually believed to be the largest as well. It’s hard to tell how large the actual planet part of a gas giant is as the atmosphere is so huge. For this reason the atmosphere is almost always considered part of the planet considerably increasing its accepted size.)

Current theories on creation of gas giants state that all non central planets will be gas giants. T

BARNSTORMER

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 3:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BarnStormer:
Quote:
Originally posted by BarnStormer:
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

OK, no responses on this observation/theory?

Helllloooooooooooo
Is anyone out there?

If I'm way off base, then tell me.

I'm a large, semi muscular man.....I can take it.

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

BarnStormer

It seems that the question has been answered.
Check out the below thread. Then check out the website mentioned

WARNING....There be spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, July 12, 2004 22:08 TIMES READ: 187
Sneak peek at Serenity art
IRONCLADOTTER

Sooooo..... have recently discovered that the brilliant and talented graphic designer Geoffrey Mandel has been working on "Serenity". I've been a fan of Geoff's work since "Space: Above & Beyond", and I can't tell you how pleased I am by this news, and how much I'm looking forward to seeing his artistic contribution to the Big Damn Movie. Really, there are no words for how freaking cool I think that is... I'm an art student and would like to grow up to be Just Like Geoff. Except for the part where he's a man and I'm not. I can do without the whole man thing.

In other good news, you can see some of Geoff's artwork for "Serenity" on the Internet. There are some ads, a new "Serenity" logo, a "worlds of the Alliance" chart and some nifty insignias and maps and such.

http://www.geoffreymandel.com

On a side note. It looks like I was right...

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

BarnStormer

RELFEXIVE

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 5:50 PM

RE: Earth, I was talking hypothetically. And quite frankly, I'd rather they sent out a test mission first as opposed to sending the whole species out at once and hoping. Ever heard of not putting all your eggs in one basket? And very few planet-wide disasters come so fast as to prevent a test run... nothing that wouldn't annihilate the species before they had the chance to get out of the first committee meeting, anyway.

And no matter how much the passage of time depends on personal perception (and it does, no two ways about it) the moment you looked at the ship's chronometer and saw fifty years or whatever had passed, you'd say "hey, I've aged, like, a week and fifty years have gone by; freaky!" Cryogenics can't stop aging, just make it happen really really slowly.

And to begin with, I imagine there'd be lots of sombre expressions and people checking the calender and saying "the Earth has been dead for a hundred years this day... let us pray". They won't forget where they've come from... not for a while anyway.

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

RELFEXIVE

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 5:55 PM

I hereby recognise the futility of attempting to 'argue' with someone who has their own very strong ideas about how the worlds of Firefly are arranged. Could be right, could be wrong. Only person who can say so is Mr Whedon, if he ever does. Whatever works, works.

In other words... we could keep banging our heads against our own respective walls for all eternity and get nowhere, and I can't be arsed

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 10:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RelFexive:
I hereby recognise the futility of attempting to 'argue' with someone who has their own very strong ideas about how the worlds of Firefly are arranged.

No offense, but that sounds like a cheap way out to me. Especially considering I don't have strong opinions on the matter. I was a supporter of the multiple system theory until I examined the evidence more closely and heard more plausible explanations than those supporting the multiple system one.

I changed my views once based on logic and I am perfectly willing to do it again. All that you must do to change my mind is present me with evidence. Provided you are as open minded there is nothing to be lost by debating this and it can be productive.

To stop now is like admitting you are wrong, why do that if you don’t believe it to be true? I only ask that you stop saying “I would rather” and use it as a fact, stop stating something that is debatable as if it is an absolute, and read posts.

I don’t consider that to be unreasonable, and unless you do I fail to see are reason to stop. We only bang our heads against the wall for eternity is if we don’t actually listen to each other with open minds.

Present your evidence, it won’t take long. I want to hear it. So far I have only heard two arguments for multiple systems. Only two. Why not share the rest? It’s not like your wasting your life by doing it.

RELFEXIVE

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 8:31 AM

This discussion is of no importance to me, I'm afraid. I just commented on the other stuff.

Whatever works, works, remember?

I'm a RPGer, I like having things like this sufficiently defined as much as anyone. I've defined it enough for me, and I'm not interested in conversions.

As I said before...

Quote:
Originally posted by RelFexive:
...I can't be arsed

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

SINGULARITY

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 10:18 AM

WHO RUTTIN CARES....ITS FIREFLY...ITS MIGHTY...AND IT ROCKS.....DOES!IT!MAKE!ANY!DIFFERENCE.....NO....NOT...NOW...NOT....EVER....PLEASE...PLEASE...STOP....GIVING A GORRAM ABOUT THIS.

ITS NOT WORTH A THREAD.....THERE ARE MOONS AND PLANETS...AND ROCKS...AND HUGE DISTANCES BETWEEN EVERYTHING.....HUGE. DISTANCES. BETWEEN. EVERYTHING.

JUST ENJOY THE SHOW....WATCH IT FOR THE SHOW....THE CAST...THE INTERACTIONS...THE FIGHTS..THE HUMOR...THE NICE WARM GLOW OF KNOWING THIS IS SPECIAL....JUST FOR GORRAM SAKES STOP ARGUING ABOUT THIS SILLY ARGUMENT....

DONG MA

Nothing can escape the event horizon. Light, matter, and especially Twinkies.

PURPLEBELLY

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 12:14 PM

Please keep arguing, guys. It's better than hitting eachother. Or even shouting at people that aren't likely to listen. Have I told you about Purplebelly's Denouement?

LEXIBLOCK

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 5:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tiger:
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.

Yes the do. In Train Job, one of the alliance guys (ok, so not a BDH) says there was a robbery in the "Georgia System". In Ariel Simon says "River, the doctors here are the
best in the system."

Quote:
Originally posted by Tiger:

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

Because the writers don't care about such things ;)

CHRISTHECYNIC

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 9:46 PM

Now I know you're just replying to one post, but you picked the wrong one if your interesting in contributing to the debate rather than simply trying to prove someone wrong.

However, even though the points are really small compared to others brought up, I’ll respond.

The fact is that there is a “Jupiter system” right here in this star system. So the “Georgia System” is necessarily another STAR system.

Second, he said “other” star systems. On the first example you gave you ignored the word “star” in the second you ignored the word “other”. When someone says the, “The doctors here are some of the best on the planet,” which they often do, that doesn’t mean there are other planets with doctors on them.

-

As for your second point, well I can’t speak as to whether the writers cared or not, but what that translates to in the multiple systems theory is “We didn’t come [far] less than eight minutes…” Sort of kills the effect of it doesn’t it? I don’t picture the writers as making mistakes that large.