Question about the planet Miranda
POSTED BY: nihonniirugaijin
UPDATED: Monday, December 29, 2008 00:47
VIEWED: 9174
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I recently say “Serenity” for the second time. I was really enjoying the first half, but the second half didn’t sit well with me this time around. I guess I didn’t notice these things the first time through because I was nicely toasted by the time I reached the second half. There were several things that puzzled me, but the big one is below. I would be interested to get responses that might point out the errors of my thinking.
I didn’t buy the fact that the entire population of Miranda, 30 million people, could die out or become Reavors, and just 12 years later absolutely no one would remember that either they or the planet Miranda had even existed. I know that the Alliance deleted all information about Miranda from the databases, but didn’t any of those people on Miranda have relatives on other planets who would remember them? This scenario would be like a country with a population of around 30 million people (say Canada or Iraq) disappearing off the face of the Earth and 12 years later no one would remember that Canada or Iraq had ever existed.
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Yes, but what if an entirely new landmass were discovered or created, and around 30,000 people were sent to colonize it? If they all vanished, would anyone remember a decade later?
Maybe, but it would be a tragedy, an accident, the planes or ships crashed, plague wiped them out, they starved, etc.
Remember that you're talking about a vast solar system, with more than 70 habitable spheres spinning in it. The population is vaster than it could ever be on one planet (hence why 30 million in that verse would probably translate closer to 30,000 on this world) and the dangers are greater. Limping through space in a revamped cargo carrier, a one-way push to the outer rim? Way more dangerous than putting out to open sea in, say, a sailboat.
So the friends and relatives who hadn't gone with those settlers probably did remember. But those people never made it all the way to the rim, or the terraforming on the new planet hadn't held, and it was a loss and a tragedy, but these things happen sometimes out on the frontier, and no one talked about it, no one connected it to Reavers, and eventually the planet was erased from record, a black rock not included in the habitable worlds taught about in schools. The way Mal said "Terraforming didn't take or somesuch" indicates to me that those things did happen, and were mostly written off as a consequence of settling a solar system, a vast and brutal frontier.
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Quote:
Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
I recently say “Serenity” for the second time. I was really enjoying the first half, but the second half didn’t sit well with me this time around. I guess I didn’t notice these things the first time through because I was nicely toasted by the time I reached the second half. There were several things that puzzled me, but the big one is below. I would be interested to get responses that might point out the errors of my thinking.
I didn’t buy the fact that the entire population of Miranda, 30 million people, could die out or become Reavors, and just 12 years later absolutely no one would remember that either they or the planet Miranda had even existed. I know that the Alliance deleted all information about Miranda from the databases, but didn’t any of those people on Miranda have relatives on other planets who would remember them? This scenario would be like a country with a population of around 30 million people (say Canada or Iraq) disappearing off the face of the Earth and 12 years later no one would remember that Canada or Iraq had ever existed.
They remembered, they remembered that Alliance said terraforming didn't hold,. it became uninhabitable, all settlers died.
This was before the War for Domination, and many forgot about sily settlers dying. Some feel the War was a result of Miranda, and keeping it secret. (like Clinton dropping bombs to distract from his shenanigans).
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Plus anybody curious to visit an uninhabitalbe place like Miranda only need pass THROUGH the gauntlet of the Reaver Armada.
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If that was the case, why didn't the Alliance NOT wipe out all the information on Miranda in the database, and instead just state that the terraforming didn't hold? Remember that Wash couldn't find ANY information on Miranda when he did a search for it.
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If that was the case, why didn't the Alliance NOT wipe out all the information on Miranda in the database, and instead just state that the terraforming didn't hold? Remember that Wash couldn't find ANY information on Miranda when he did a search for it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
If that was the case, why didn't the Alliance NOT wipe out all the information on Miranda in the database, and instead just state that the terraforming didn't hold? Remember that Wash couldn't find ANY information on Miranda when he did a search for it.
I think initially they spread the information about the terraforming malfunctioning, back when a wave of family and friends and perhaps trading partners noticed that Miranda citizens stopped responding. Then they started wiping the information from the databases.
Remember, the information about the terraforming is what some of the crew remember, not what they find online.
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It’s really not unthinkable that the all mighty powers that be could cover up an incident like Miranda. I’ve seen somewhere where there’s 6 billion people inhabiting our own tiny planet, just think of a area in space that may contain 50 billion, on different worlds. It’s entirely believable that the people of the verse would find what they have been told to be the truth.
Just remember, 45 years ago the president of the US of A was shot in broad daylight in front of thousands and some still think (or because of time are uninterested) there was a lone gunman. That Oswald was quite the marksman.
Z
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There is also the fact that people probably didn't care. Not out of cruelty but because life was so damned hard that you really only have time to worry about what is in your current landscape. We lose touch with people and relatives all the time in our world, just imagine one light years away.
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I had a problem with this my own self, and whenever somebody said anything about it I covered my ears and went "la, la, la, I can't hear you!"
I do agree, and like all the responses though - I like the justification, and it works, so I'll leave it at that.
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