The Firefly/Serenity Solar System
POSTED BY: FraserBW
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 7, 2006 10:55
VIEWED: 27197
PAGE 5 of 11
couple speculations...
It should be 'relatively' easy to find the Verse... as we live on Earth That Was. Pick a maximum number of light years they could have travelled- that's the center of a sphere centered on us. Even assuming 200 light years, there just aren't that many stars nearby.
I assumed that the city-like Alliance ships were the original colonizing transports.
One other important planetary factor we haven't covered... supernovas. All the elements heavier than iron came here from neighborhood novas; our Sun is not massive enough to create them. You might want a bigger star for that reason, but mostly you'd want a very stable star.
You'd even want to be sure the nearby stars are completely stable too!:]
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It's a matter of energy. To support life there has to be a source of energy. In our case that source is the sun. Get too close to the sun and you get hot and crispy -- look at Venus. Go too far away and it gets too cold --- look at Mars. The range of orbits that could actually support our kind of life is called a star's "habitable zone" and it's actually pretty narrow. To support the environment we see the BDH in -- ie the kinds of environments where "western" style clothes are appropriate is likely to be even narrower.
That is a problem with the single star theory IMHO, you simply can't fit enough of them in one habitable zone. The Miranda graphic shows a far more interesting system. One with about 5 stars in a close cluster, each with a collection of planets. It makes the most sense for the "verse, explaining why some trips take days and some trips a month (maybe more.) It makes the verse big enough to get lost in. Multiple stars mean multiple habitable zones supporting multiple worlds.
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I feel your pain brother. I was under the 'mistaken' impression when wathcing the series that the 'verse' was exactly as you described - a cluster of stars with slow FTL drives. That fit with the idea of dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. I didn't ever see it as just one star system, though they kept referring to the verse as 'the system'.
However in Joss' defense, I can sum up what we know about other solar systems in one word; Nothing. No offense to our astronomers that have observed 'stellar wobles' and dubbed them planets, that's a pretty impressive leap of logic. I hope it bears fruit but don't feel we'll really know whats orbitting other suns until we send probes there or have a scope that can actually observe planetary bodies in said systems.
So if Joss wants to make a 20 planet solar system and terraform all of the available moons and planets then God bless him. His writing is otherwise too damn good to fault him on a piece of planetary data that is conjecture and theory with only one example (SOL) to go by.
I aggree with you about the other visual/sci things he did get right. Beautiful to behold.
Final note, I was watching Cowboy Bebop with my daughters the other day and was struck by the similarity of the stories. Bounty Hunters/Pirates/take any job they can get in a fast loose single solar system 'verse' with terraformed planets (Mars, Venus, Earth and some of the moons). Their method of travel is a bit different between planets but 'the feel' of the verse was similar. Wonder if there was a conncection there for Joss?
guntermarx
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Habitable zones is an old and outdated idea. The atmosphere composition, magnetic field, size of body, orientation of planet surface, and stabilitity of axis have more influence on environmental conditions than distance to sun. My students are always shocked to find the when the Earth's eliptical orbit is closest to the sun is in January, our coldest month of the year.
The fate of Mars is due to several factors that have nothing to do with its distance from the sun. Mars has two very small moons and wobbles on its axis unlike Earth which has one big moon to stabilize our 15 degree tilt. This gave Mars widely varying seasons. Mars does not have a strong magnetic field and is subject to more radiation coming in from the sun that helped strip away much of its atmosphere. Its small size and weaker gravity didn't help to maintain its atmosphere as well. Now given all these strikes against Mars, it still maintained an atmosphere with oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water vapor for a good portion of its history. It had oceans and a water cycle. And more likely than not, it had (and may still have) life.
So for terraforming, even a wobbly and small planet far from the sun, can be habitable with right mix of gases added to the atmosphere and a decent magnetic field (natural or may be something that could be artificially induced). A terraformed planet doesn't need a habitibal environment like the Earth's that lasts billions of years. If it can last millions of years before needing repairs, that's good enough for human use. Think of it like beach renourishment, the beaches erode away up to the houses and businesses on barrier islands, so local governments come in and dredge sand from offshore and pile it to create a new beach extending back out to its original width. Now this beach erodes away again, but the dredgers come back and add more sand again. A terraformed planet would probably work the same way, a lot of maintenance but not beyond the means of local population. This might be why the outer poorer worlds are dryer and desert like conditions, they just can't afford the upkeep on their world. It could also be that the core worlds were much stingier with the water resources in comets and used the lions share of them. The magnetic barriers on the outer wolds might be far weaker too, allowing the radiation on the solar winds to bombard the surface at a higher level than the core worlds and limit plant growth. Perhaps these outer worlds have axis that are fairly stable and perpendicular to the suns rotation, so they do not experience much seasonal change and are dryer because of the stable conditions (this might be artificially induced). The outer worlds probably had a lot of CO2 and other greenhouse gases pumped into their atmosphere to trap more light energy as heat given their farther distance from the sun.
Whoops, also forgot to mention geothermal energy. If the worlds farther away from the sun are geologicly active, they have a lot of internal heat that can be tapped to help warm the world besides the light from the sun.
Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
It's a matter of energy. To support life there has to be a source of energy. In our case that source is the sun. Get too close to the sun and you get hot and crispy -- look at Venus. Go too far away and it gets too cold --- look at Mars. The range of orbits that could actually support our kind of life is called a star's "habitable zone" and it's actually pretty narrow. To support the environment we see the BDH in -- ie the kinds of environments where "western" style clothes are appropriate is likely to be even narrower.
That is a problem with the single star theory IMHO, you simply can't fit enough of them in one habitable zone. The Miranda graphic shows a far more interesting system. One with about 5 stars in a close cluster, each with a collection of planets. It makes the most sense for the "verse, explaining why some trips take days and some trips a month (maybe more.) It makes the verse big enough to get lost in. Multiple staNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
In your last paragraph you mentioned a very salient point about the suns apparent luminosity on planets on the edge of the solar system. Seems like no matter what world they go to, the star is the same size and candle power. Hmmm. What method of terraforming could possibly warm outer worlds that are too distant from the sun for its natural heat to do it? Probably a parabolic mirror at a lagrange point between the subject planet and the sun. It would always be in the same position between the two bodies so the sun would be magnified both in its intensity and luminosity.
Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR) did an excellent job of describing said mirror in his terraforming masterpiece, the Mars series (Red Mars, Green Mars Blue Mars in that order). He also describes how the reverse of the mirror, the parabolic solar umbrella could be used to dampen the effects of the sun for planets like Venus that are too hot. The materials garnered for such a massive project would require moving an asteroid into the required position and mining the materials/manufacturing the sail right there on the spot - largely robotic with some human supervision. It would probably take something on the order of 30 years or so with advanced robotics and materials to build each mirror and there would have to be dozens of them as each moon and planet describes a different orbit and would require its own mirror/umbrella. Incidently, Dr. Robert Zubrin, a rocket scientist, author of many books on space exploration and terraforming/resource utilization in space from Martin Marietta and one of the founders/President of the Mars Society aggrees with the mirror idea for terraforming.
Terraforming would also go beyond simply brightening or dimming the sun's power. Each planet would have different needs based on its atmosphere, gravity, geological make up, etc. KSR also desribes use of black algae seeding polar caps to melt ice and release O2, CO2 and water vapor (the later two excellent green house gases). He also discussed drilling fulmaroles (massive strip mining project that drills mile wide holes down to near the mantle, to release gasses to thicken the atmosphere.
I could go on but don't want to bore you. The point is it is extremely likely that such a multi-planet/moon system if it exists could be terraformed.
And if all else fails, just enjoy the show, the excellent characters and writing and don't get too hung up on the gory details. Cuz in the end its Science Fiction.
guntermarx
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If you have cheap artificial gravity, none of this is a problem. AG could create a gravitational lens to concentrate or diffuse sunlight, provide standard gravity on moonlets & stations, and last but not least- an inertialess stardrive!:] (if there are fuel tanks on Serenity, they are kinda small).
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Quote:
Originally posted by FraserBW:
Now the newly rediscovered Miranda world might not be on that map and could be a 21st "planet" in orbit since it is unknown to the characters and gone from most databanks. What it looks like from the map on the bridge is that it is beyond a belt of debris and wreckage that is Reaver teritory. But it's possible that it represents a belt around Miranda and perhaps it is a moon around a gas giant.
I'm almost certain that this is not the case:
don't forget that the scene with the planet diagram was a flashback to river's childhood, and was probably before the miranda coverup.
(river is in her late teens, and miranda has been hidden for the last decade or so? the flashback probably took place around the time of the coverup)
chances are, miranda was on that chart, because the gov. hadn't needed to cover up yet.
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Ah, good point! So it might be that very last planet, or at least a moon around it. I noticed while rewatching Serenity (now braced for Book and Wash's deaths so I could focus more) that some of the plants have bright spots around them that could be moons in the diagram, but they might also be stars in the starfield behind it. BTW, the debris field between Serenity and Miranda is dipicted on the graphics on the bridge. It appears to be a continuous belt, but it's doubtful it would be able to create a belt of debris in an orbit between Miranda and the next planet. So either it's a belt of debris around Miranda formin a ring, or it is perhaps a belt of debris around the Jovian planet Miranda orbits.
Quote:
Originally posted by dementedyam:Quote:
Originally posted by FraserBW:
Now the newly rediscovered Miranda world might not be on that map and could be a 21st "planet" in orbit since it is unknown to the characters and gone from most databanks. What it looks like from the map on the bridge is that it is beyond a belt of debris and wreckage that is Reaver teritory. But it's possible that it represents a belt around Miranda and perhaps it is a moon around a gas giant.
I'm almost certain that this is not the case:
don't forget that the scene with the planet diagram was a flashback to river's childhood, and was probably before the miranda coverup.
(river is in her late teens, and miranda has been hidden for the last decade or so? the flashback probably took place around the time of the coverup)
chances are, miranda was on that chart, because the gov. hadn't needed to cover up yet.
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My big problem with 'one star system' is Out of Gas. Specifically, the notion that they were out of communications range.
What exactly is communications range? Radio signals travel at the speed of light (if they're not using something faster - nobody seems to have communications lag time in Serenity or Firefly). You'd almost have to assume that all the planets were conveniently on the other side of the sun from Serenity for them to not be able to contact someone in a reasonable amount of time for rescue.
However, if you assume slow FTL travel but still STL communications (at least for the most part - core planets might have an Ansible for the Cortex, that ships access with STL radio), you can be way out in the black at a point where it might take months for a signal to reach somebody.
Star Pilot Grainger
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Quote:
Originally posted by guntermarx:
I could go on but don't want to bore you. The point is it is extremely likely that such a multi-planet/moon system if it exists could be terraformed.
And if all else fails, just enjoy the show, the excellent characters and writing and don't get too hung up on the gory details. Cuz in the end its Science Fiction.
guntermarx
Yup, I agree that Joss's Firefly system is completely possible. If anything, I think Joss is too conservative on the science. In the end, nature always ends up being far more creative then science fiction writers (2001 A Space Odessy portrayed 4 frozen moons around Jupiter, but when the Voyagers went by they found even more moons, rings, and found the Galilean moons all had their own individual characteristics and were anything but frozen). As far as the sun porblem (unfortunately Joss only had one planet to shoot on), I think the possibility of a more compact solar system then our own is a good solution to the sun problem. The software exsists to simulate solar system moels with variantions like sun size and accrecian disk mass. If we can get an astronomer to simulate something that results in a Firefly solar system, then we will know what size star it will be located around.
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