The "Everyone is Right Theory" on Firefly Planets

POSTED BY: JavidRho
UPDATED: Friday, March 5, 2004 15:35
VIEWED: 8854
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IAMJACKSUSERNAME

Tuesday, March 2, 2004 3:48 PM

What seems to me like the most obvious evidence that Serenity can go FTL is that the sun looks the same on all the planets and moons where her crew are shown, and it's unlikely that they've only visited worlds in one stable belt of worlds around the star.

Superset: just one credible mention of something FTLy would mean some ships can travel FTL.

--
I am Jack's username
FTL in Firefly? < http://jack.p5.org.uk/ftl-firefly.en.html>

SHINY

Tuesday, March 2, 2004 5:37 PM

I'm relatively sure that Joss & co. don't give a rat's pee-goo about this level of technical detail/debate and even if the show had gone on for several seasons, they would probably never have addressed it directly, so it would always remain a 'religious' issue among those who feel a need to rationalize or justify everything in the show to such a degree.

RIVER
Purple elephants are flying.
MAL
Good. Thanks for the update.

HANS

Tuesday, March 2, 2004 6:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:
I'm relatively sure that Joss & co. don't give a rat's pee-goo about this level of technical detail/debate and even if the show had gone on for several seasons, they would probably never have addressed it directly, so it would always remain a 'religious' issue among those who feel a need to rationalize or justify everything in the show to such a degree.

Whatever. As I've said in many other posts, 99% of why I enjoy the show has absolutely nothing to do with scientific or technical issues, and I'm sure most people (on any side of this issue) feel exactly the same. Debating this kind of thing is as much an intellectual exercise as anything else. It's the story, the characters, the drama that are most important to me, and in no sense whatsoever is this a "religious issue I need to justify to such a degree". That's a ridiculous and totally unsupported statement.

You claim that the creators would never address this issue at any time, which I completely disagree with. This was a show that had enough respect for science fact to avoid having sound in space. Since 2001 (the movie, not the year) every single sci-fi movie and TV show has had sound in space, but it was important enough for the creators to include this aspect of realism (despite the fact they probably had to fight the network to keep this aspect of the show intact). I'm sure it wasn't the only scientific aspect of the show the creators considered, and this attention to detail is part of that other 1% of why I like the show. And I'll continue to debate the issue as long as I like, thank you very much.

Hans

KASUO

Tuesday, March 2, 2004 7:27 PM

What about interstellar gates, similar to the ones mentioned in Blade Runner (see "Tanhauser Gate") or the late 1990's Lost in Space movie (the gate they were building near Earth orbit)? Such a gate would enable non-FTL ships to travel to other systems that also had gates.

This could also help support the idea of the OP that Serenity and her crew are limited to one system with multiple moons. While use of such gates have not been mentioned on the show, it's not a stretch to consider that maybe ME didn't think it was necessary for the plot to mention the use of such gates. (yeah, it's a stretch but gorramit, it can happen!)
________
"Let's moon 'em!"

GROUNDED

Tuesday, March 2, 2004 11:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hans:

As much as anything, it is because of aesthetic reasons that I am annoyed by the persistance of everyday FTL in TV and movies. It falls into an old cliched mindset that if it's sci-fi, you have to be zipping around from star to star. To me it represents lazy thinking on the part of writers, the kind where when you hear the words "sci-fi" they immediately think robots, ray guns, aliens, time-travel, etc. Whether FTL is possible or not, JUST ONCE I'd like to see a representation of the future where FTL is not as commmonplace as walking to the corner store. It presents unique problems which require unique solutions - and for me, when I see Firefly, it seems quite clear to me that the writers were thinking the same way.

This is what appeals to me about it to. What would be really interesting would be a show in which only lightspeed has been achieved. Then you'd have the beautiful premise of zipping between planets in a subjective instant arriving back home some hundred years after you left

All this talk about FTL suddenly being not only possible but inevitable makes me somewhat uneasy. To have an FTL-enabled society colonising the galaxy within the next 500 years is more than a long stretch of the imagination. Of course you can always fudge that by stipulating that an astounding, and unusually premature, technical breakthrough was made in 2274 - but that's not scientific extrapolation, that's dramatic license. I think there is a nice equal balance of both in Firefly.

SHINY

Wednesday, March 3, 2004 5:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hans:
You claim that the creators would never address this issue at any time, which I completely disagree with. This was a show that had enough respect for science fact to avoid having sound in space. Since 2001 (the movie, not the year) every single sci-fi movie and TV show has had sound in space, but it was important enough for the creators to include this aspect of realism (despite the fact they probably had to fight the network to keep this aspect of the show intact). I'm sure it wasn't the only scientific aspect of the show the creators considered, and this attention to detail is part of that other 1% of why I like the show. And I'll continue to debate the issue as long as I like, thank you very much.

I just re-read my post and I'm sorry for coming off a bit snippy; I didn't mean that you guys shouldn't discuss this topic...I think I was just a bit out of sorts when I wrote that. I apologize. (although I still doubt that Joss & co. would have addressed it directly, because in Joss' words "I'm completely useless when it comes to science" and while there definitely was an attempt to make the show realistic, he never spent time detailing how the ship or engines work since those details were never central to the plot or 'human drama' he was shooting for...imho)

RIVER
Purple elephants are flying.
MAL
Good. Thanks for the update.

DRAKON

Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hans:
Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:
I'm relatively sure that Joss & co. don't give a rat's pee-goo about this level of technical detail/debate and even if the show had gone on for several seasons, they would probably never have addressed it directly, so it would always remain a 'religious' issue among those who feel a need to rationalize or justify everything in the show to such a degree.

Whatever. As I've said in many other posts, 99% of why I enjoy the show has absolutely nothing to do with scientific or technical issues, and I'm sure most people (on any side of this issue) feel exactly the same. Debating this kind of thing is as much an intellectual exercise as anything else. It's the story, the characters, the drama that are most important to me, and in no sense whatsoever is this a "religious issue I need to justify to such a degree". That's a ridiculous and totally unsupported statement.

I think you misunderstand me, which is pretty common I find. It appears the use of that term is non-standard and did not communicate what I wanted to.

The primary difference between science and religion (according to me) is that science uses observation and logic to arrive at models of how the world works and what it contains, etc. The scientific method.

The major advantage of this method is that it is independent of any specific observer. In principle, anyone can make a scientific observation, or experiment and come up with a viable theory. Its objective nature, its independence from specific or particular observers, renders the question answerable to just anyone.

Religion uses appeal to authority, or references subjective data. The problem with subjective data is not that it might be wrong, is that there is no objective way to tell if it is true or not. In these case, it does depend on a specific observer. Only you know whether you have had those little chats with the divine, or with your conscience, and what was said by both sides. No one else is privy to the contents of your mind.

In this case, Joss is the authority, and he has not said. Why? As you describe, because while the set may be 500 years in a future dominated by space travel, that ain't the point of the show, or why it is so good. But his silence is the problem, as his view is the only one that really matters.

So, because we are appealing to authority for the ultimate answer to this question, it is a religious discussion. It was not meant as a slam, insult or any such thing. I was thinking denotatively, and completely disregarding any connotations to the word.

Quote:
You claim that the creators would never address this issue at any time, which I completely disagree with. This was a show that had enough respect for science fact to avoid having sound in space. Since 2001 (the movie, not the year) every single sci-fi movie and TV show has had sound in space, but it was important enough for the creators to include this aspect of realism (despite the fact they probably had to fight the network to keep this aspect of the show intact). I'm sure it wasn't the only scientific aspect of the show the creators considered, and this attention to detail is part of that other 1% of why I like the show. And I'll continue to debate the issue as long as I like, thank you very much.

Hans

And I will be right there with you, as I find it an enjoyable mental exercize.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
All this talk about FTL suddenly being not only possible but inevitable makes me somewhat uneasy. To have an FTL-enabled society colonising the galaxy within the next 500 years is more than a long stretch of the imagination. Of course you can always fudge that by stipulating that an astounding, and unusually premature, technical breakthrough was made in 2274 - but that's not scientific extrapolation, that's dramatic license. I think there is a nice equal balance of both in Firefly.

It is more scientific extrapolation these days than you might think. FTL looks more promising these days, we actually have a theory that allows for it, without actually creating any "rubber" science to get it to work.

I have heard of several groups who are working through the mathematics, and trying to figure out how to build it today. (Well in the next few years) One even has submitted papers to LANL, and has a yahoo group. It may not be like MIT or Cal Tech kind of folks, but then neither were Wilber and Orville.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

RANGRBOB

Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:43 PM

"As much as anything, it is because of aesthetic reasons that I am annoyed by the persistance of everyday FTL in TV and movies. It falls into an old cliched mindset that if it's sci-fi, you have to be zipping around from star to star. To me it represents lazy thinking on the part of writers, the kind where when you hear the words "sci-fi" they immediately think robots, ray guns, aliens, time-travel, etc. Whether FTL is possible or not, JUST ONCE I'd like to see a representation of the future where FTL is not as commmonplace as walking to the corner store." Hans

I would then recomend the "Mad Max" movies.

BBAY

Friday, March 5, 2004 4:58 AM

I'm afraid that FTL is the only correct theory. Based not on current scientific possibility, but purely on the plot of the show.

You can't "keep pushing further out" when you're in a single solar system.

You can't plot a course "off the alliance radar" in a single solar system.

You can't be out of range of even present day lightspeed communication in a single solar system. (We can still talk to the pioneer spacecraft.)

A single solar system is just too small to have the "wild west" themes of FF. Imagine "40,000 firefly's still flying" in one solar system, that's way crowded. And that's just a single class of ship.

At the level of technology in FF, a single system would quickly be completely saturated by civilization.

Also, it's germane to point out that the big solar system theory usually postulates a mode of travel that is "conventional, but better". Proponents of this theory fail to take into account that even travel between planets, on the timescales that we see in the show, present technical difficulties well into the realm of the fantastical. The amount of propellent and energy that would be required to burn from one planet to another, even planets in similar orbits, in eight or ten hours is so outlandish that you really might as well allow FTL travel, from a standpoint of how it violates the laws of physics as we know them.

(Oops, sorry, I got into science when I meant to argue purely from plot.)

And the jump gate theory doesn't hold up either. Such gates would become alliance chokepoints that would make hiding fugitives, smuggling or eluding the authorities basically impossible.

In short, without FTL there is no frontier. And frontier is a critical theme in Firefly.

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