Why the silly 'verse change? **Minor SERENITY Spoilers** by Mycenius

They never said in the show that the Firefly 'verse had multiple star systems. They have no FTL technology, it would actually make less sense for the show to have more than one star system. Plus they never said that the new solar system had only one sun.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 3:46 PM

I agree that there are problems with the single solar system concept, but there are also problems with the multisystem idea. But I do not agree that there is any internal conflict between the portrayal of the scale of the "Verse in the movie. Just look at the endless threads on this site to see that the series did not clearly indicate which alternative Joss had in mind. You as a fan might have preferred one interpretation or the other for aesthetic or logical reasons, but the internal evidence from the series could be used to support either view. The movie merely clarified that Joss intended the "Verse to be smaller.

The only new problem concerning scaling that I saw arise in the movie was that there was definite evidence of FTL communications (even short interplanetary distances should produce time lags), which is an impossibility. But I'm willing to let this nit slide for purposes of dramatic necessity.

As far as the Alliance ship designs go, I also miss the behemoth city-in-space cruisers from the series. However, I don't consider this to be a major conflict either. I always thought of the design of the Alliance cruisers to be based more on psychological impact than on the practicalities of space combat. In that sense, the cruisers are a mobile intimidation platform for showing the flag on the border worlds and serving as a base for anti-smuggling patrols. I could be wrong, but I doubt they would be the first choice for front-line combat missions.

Anyway, no matter what function the Magellan and Dortmunder style cruisers serve, it makes sense that the Alliance would have a variety of ship classes (with many smaller ship classes available). Otherwise it would be like Starfleet in the original series where every starship was a Constitution class heavy cruiser like the Enterprise. The Operative called in the available warships which were close enough to reach him in time. It's not surprising that they were smaller ships. Then again, don't underestimate the size of those warships. Serenity was dwarfed by most of the vessels and I was satisfied by the little-bug-slipping-through-a-net feel of the climatic space battle.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 3:54 PM

Hi Giantevilhead,

Quote:
Originally posted by Giantevilhead:
They never said in the show that the Firefly 'verse had multiple star systems.

True, but it is clearly implied - there are comments (in the show scripts) as I mentioned that refer to reaching systems with multiple planets, and so on... (IIRC I think one is something like '...its the 3rd planet in the system" or something like that). The references to the core planets early in the series also 'implies' they are multiple star systems not a cluster of planets around a single star system. Remember that Earth IRL is in a semi-remote area, other stars are much further from us than they are in other parts of our galaxy.

Quote:
They have no FTL technology, it would actually make less sense for the show to have more than one star system.

Actually I believe it's implied that they do, or at least that they have something close - firstly it is not stated they don't, and secondly the 'migration' off ETW would have been near impossible without it... It may only be Einsteinian (i.e. travel at 0.999999999 the speed of light) but they would have to have something like it to get off ETW to start with regardless.

Quote:
Plus they never said that the new solar system had only one sun.

It is given by the 'visual' of River and Simon in school (the teacher's hologrpahic display) - I believe only 1 star/sun is depicted. Even if there were 2 or more suns the physics of reality still mean only 1-2 planets or moons could be in the appropriate 'belt' the right distance from the sun to ideally support human type life forms... Having multiple suns (i.e. a binary star) would just mean that belt would be further away from them and marginally larger - no way you could cram all those planets in the belt - others would be habitable in harsh conditions or would need atmosphere domes and so on... But you wouldn't get that many in a single system...

Even physics aside, aspects of the story don't make as much sense (to me at least) if everyone is crammed into a single system...

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 4:04 PM

Hi Diego,

Yep agree with most of your comments, and don't have a major issue with the ship thing, just missi the big 'uns! FWIW IRL it is likely if such ships ever existed they would need to be defeated by huge fleets of small fighters - they are actually depicted as essentially 'Dreadnought Aircraft Carriers' or similar in the TV series (i.e. heavy armament and a fleet of fighter craft carried onboard). And they would be serviced by support fleets of smaller craft as in the movie. They could have had one in the battle scene disgorging a huge swarm of fighters and such...

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 4:28 PM

TETHYS

Here's your answer(s). Was impressed with the pure science aspect of this, so if your astronomically inclined (and not just a "nay-sayer"), you should enjoy this a bit.

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue439/labnotes.html

"I aim to misbehave"
I am: http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/warriorshtm/bigcat.htm

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 4:39 PM

DARKJESTER

To be honest, Mycenius, I think you are trying to be too logical about this. Joss is a storyteller, not a hard SciFi writer. I'm not sure that all the different "facts" about the 'verse can be reconciled. It's about the human factor in the stories, not about the celestial mechanics.

MAL "You only gotta scare him."
JAYNE "Pain is scary..."

http://www.fireflytalk.com - Big Damn Podcast

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:08 PM

ETHAWYN

I could be wrong, but I have no memory of them saying there were more than 70 planets. At least in the movie they say "dozens" and hundreds of moons. The systems they speak of are not solar systems was my impression but say, a planet and it's moons. As for FTL travel Joss said that they probably didn't have in the 'verse. The migration according to the RPG book happened over more than a generation of travel. On top of all that Joss did say that science questions make his head hurt so he's not as concerned as some about having super real science, yet if you compare it to Star Trek or Star Wars(both of which I love) it makes a lot more sense.

And yes, I do miss the big ships, but I just figured that they weren't used in the move, yet they were there. My assumption was that the cruiser that the Op. was using was some new model cruiser the alliance had sucked tax payer dollars into.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DarkJester:
To be honest, Mycenius, I think you are trying to be too logical about this. Joss is a storyteller, not a hard SciFi writer. I'm not sure that all the different "facts" about the 'verse can be reconciled. It's about the human factor in the stories, not about the celestial mechanics.

You're probably right DJ - just borne of passion for the whole Firefly & Serenity thing...

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Mycenius:
True, but it is clearly implied - there are comments (in the show scripts) as I mentioned that refer to reaching systems with multiple planets, and so on... (IIRC I think one is something like '...its the 3rd planet in the system" or something like that). The references to the core planets early in the series also 'implies' they are multiple star systems not a cluster of planets around a single star system. Remember that Earth IRL is in a semi-remote area, other stars are much further from us than they are in other parts of our galaxy.

Core planets does not imply that there are multiple star systems. It is possible that there are planets close to earth but we just haven’t seen them yet.

Quote:
Actually I believe it's implied that they do, or at least that they have something close - firstly it is not stated they don't, and secondly the 'migration' off ETW would have been near impossible without it... It may only be Einsteinian (i.e. travel at 0.999999999 the speed of light) but they would have to have something like it to get off ETW to start with regardless.

It’s never implied that there’s FTL technology and it would not have been impossible for the migration from the earth that was to take place without FTL. When he was making the show, Joss said that he does not think that the Firefly ‘verse has FTL.

Quote:
It is given by the 'visual' of River and Simon in school (the teacher's hologrpahic display) - I believe only 1 star/sun is depicted. Even if there were 2 or more suns the physics of reality still mean only 1-2 planets or moons could be in the appropriate 'belt' the right distance from the sun to ideally support human type life forms... Having multiple suns (i.e. a binary star) would just mean that belt would be further away from them and marginally larger - no way you could cram all those planets in the belt - others would be habitable in harsh conditions or would need atmosphere domes and so on... But you wouldn't get that many in a single system...

Even physics aside, aspects of the story don't make as much sense (to me at least) if everyone is crammed into a single system...

Mars and Venus can be terraformed to support human life. That’s three planets in our little solar system. Some speculate that even Mercury can be terraformed to support human life if we have the technology. Not to mention the fact that a planet can have more than one moon. We also don’t know the size of their sun or suns.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ethawyn:
I could be wrong, but I have no memory of them saying there were more than 70 planets.

Hi Ethawyn, It's in the Firefly Series - specifically states 70 Planets plus numerous moons (or words to that effect) - IIRC there's a reference to the war, that when it ended the "70 planets were (re)united under the Alliance" by the core planets, etc, etc... (or maybe the reverse - the 70 planets were divided, etc, etc). There is also another reference in another episode, again IIRC, that says something vaguely like "the 70 planets and all their moons" or some such...

I think the number 70 is also mentioned in some 'official' documentation somewhere (the blurb on the series or something or maybe the official website or somewhere)...

Quote:
At least in the movie they say "dozens" and hundreds of moons.

Yep - and that is a subtle change from the series as in Firefly there are 70 Planets plus lots of Moons, and in Serenity there are 12 or so Planets and 100's of Moons - so there's actually even more inhabited worlds implied in the Movie vs. the TV Series...

Rightly or wrongly my point is it's a change that doesn't seem to have been necessary (has no effect on the plot, scene settings, or time in the movie) nor for any benefit to the story as a whole? Just a change for the sake of a change...

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:33 PM

One thing I should mention is the difference between internal inconsistency and consistency with reality. With a tv show, internal consistency is far more important than consistency with reality. For example if in one Star Trek episode Commander Riker uses a phaser at full power can vaporize 10 tons of rock, which is completely inconsistent with reality, but the inconsistency with reality would not matter if phasers in future episodes are also able to vaporize 10 tons of rock. There would only be a problem if in another episode, they used a phaser at full power against a person and it killed him without vaporizing him.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Giantevilhead:
One thing I should mention is the difference between internal inconsistency and consistency with reality.

Yep agreed totally!

That's actually my main point GEH, there's been an inconsistency between FF and Serenity, and a by-product of that inconsistency, IMHO, has created an inconsistency (or rather perhaps an increased inconsistency) with reality... In the big scheme of things it's minor and I'm probably being excessively pedantic, but, it seems it was a change that they made a point of making for no apparant benefit or reason... That's all.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:46 PM

STAKETHELURK

Quote:
It's in the Firefly Series - specifically states 70 Planets plus numerous moons (or words to that effect)

If memory serves, the figure "70 Earths" was not mentioned in the series proper, but in the deleted scene from "Our Mrs. Reynolds." Because of continuity errors in other deleted scenes, I feel that deleted scenes should be viewed at best only as semi-canon. I suspect Joss feels the same; since it was never actually mentioned in a proper episode, he has no compunction about changing it to suit his needs (as another example of this, in the script for the Buffy pilot, it says that the Master is a 600 year old german. This was never mentioned in the actual episode and Joss had no problem contradicting that later since it was never officially stated).

Even if you take the "70 Earths" bit as canon, look at it in context. Mal says: "There's more'n 70 Earths spinnin' and the meek have inherited not one of them." You cannot assume that Earths=planets. In the BDM, the narrator/teacher refers to both the planets and the moons. The word "Earth," especially in Mal's line, has a metaphoric meaning and cannot be assumed to mean "Earth-sized planet" when it could just as logically mean "terraformed planetoid capable of supporting human life" (you can kinda see why they just say "Earths").

Finally, I haven't yet got my hands on the RPG, but I believe it contains a map of the 'verse and a list of planets, which totals to around 30. Or so I've heard it mentioned. Anyone care to confirm it?

Quote:
Rightly or wrongly my point is it's a change that doesn't seem to have been necessary (has no effect on the plot, scene settings, or time in the movie) nor for any benefit to the story as a whole? Just a change for the sake of a change...

That's just the thing--a fair number of us are saying that there's been no change. If he'd done something other than what's up on the big screen, I'd be just as up in arms as you are now. But as others have said, before the BDM there was a running debate as to whether the 'verse was single or multiple system. I was still just lurking at the time, but I came firmly down on the "Single System" side, for canonical reasons but also because every single time he was asked over the course of the series and the movie, Mr. Whedon has said it is a single star system. The fact that the question kept popping up is probably why he very explicitly answered it in the first few lines of the movie. Like I said, no change.

But I'm with you on missing the Alliance city-ships (purely for aesthetic reasons, I understand why they're not there).

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by StakeTheLurk:
If memory serves, the figure "70 Earths" was not mentioned in the series proper...

Hi STL - it's actually "70 Worlds..." or "70 Planets..." IIRC, and it's specifically in a blurb about the war, not the one you have quoted from a 'general' scene - although that is probalby the second reference to 70 I could recall...

I don't have my DVD's they are out on loan converting more people to FF fans so I have no way to find the reference I am thinking of in the immediate future... But I am certain the reference is there in a full episode...

Of course I could be wrong...

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 5:56 PM

No, Mal specifically said "70 earths."

There is the matter of the matter of technology. Serenity has artificial gravity even when its life support is off so that type of technology is probably very widespread so it is very likely that they are able to settle on planets and moons much smaller or bigger than earth because of their gravity altering technology. They could also settle on planets either closer or farther away from the sun by modifying the atmosphere to keep in or block out sunlight.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 6:03 PM

STAKETHELURK

Unfortunately, I, too, have lent out my DVDs but I am absolutely certain that the "70 Earths" reference appears solely in the deleted scene. Guess we'll just have to wait and see, though it appears Giantevilhead is backing me up. Do you have the set with you, to check? Maybe I should just go look for episode transcripts.

Quote:
There is the matter of the matter of technology. Serenity has artificial gravity even when its life support is off so that type of technology is probably very widespread so it is very likely that they are able to settle on planets and moons much smaller or bigger than earth because of their gravity altering technology.

I remember in "Serenity, Part I," when they're describing how the colonization of the border moons works, Zoe specifically mentions "gravity" as being one of the things that they altered to earth norm in the terraforming process--which, as you said, makes sense with their already existing artificial gravity system.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 6:31 PM

You might have a point there, Mycenius. Like you, I also considered the possibility that they could serve as fighter carriers (they certainly had a fair number of fighters or gunships or whatever in the series).

I still feel that the Dortmunder-type cruiser design seems too akward to be a line of battle dreadnought/battleship, but I could totally buy them as command ship/carriers in a role like our modern day aircraft carriers.

Then again, they seem to operate on their own without support craft out on the Rim. This seems weird for a command ship/carrier, but does fit with their designation as "cruiser". Oh well, enough speculating with too little data for tonight.

Good thread, Mycenius.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 9:15 PM

RUNA27

Quote:
In the Serenity start sequence it talks about the leaving of Earth that Was being possible because they found a new "Solar System" with 70+ planets and hundreds of moons that were habitable - which is obviously completely implausible (for several reasons) and,

And you're quoting it wrong.

From the shooting script in Serenity Visual Companion, we hear of the original colonized system having "dozens of planets and hunreds of moons"... though people have pointed that out, I thought it was worth mentioning that you can check right in that book.

And since I don't think anyone's brought it up yet: it's a good thing the deleted scenes aren't counted by Joss as canon, because they apparently contradict Serenity canon!

There's a little chart on page 12 of the Serenity Visual Companion that shows "The Worlds of The Alliance"... a number of planets are pictured, 40 of them with names (an additional three pictured objects are listed under "border moons", and Sihnon has what appears to be four pictured, unnamed moons). For there to be more than 43-47 "Earths" could be reconciled with the Visual Companion's film notes only if you say "they didn't mention all the planets/moons" (unlikely, I think), or (more likely), that "border moons" refers to more than the pictured three.

Quote:

even given Terraforming capability, would be impossible to inhabit due to the distances of the planets from the 'sun', etc...

There are likely several more suns in the inhabited 'verse, actually. That, and a heat/light source might not be impossible to install, though possibly it would be impractical in some ways.

You simply must look at page... I believe it's page 117 in the Visual Companion, which has a picture of the electronic map accessed by River on the ship's navigation computer. If only because it shows the 'verse, although you're free to draw your own conclusions from it, as the thing is bloody confusing (though I MUST insist that you realize that in the opening lines of the film, they are referring to the FIRST colonized system, not neccesarily the only one. Also, "system" may actually refer to several star systems orbiting a larger central star, especially if you look at the crazyass picture in the SVC).

The StarDestroyer.net forums have a discussion on that very picture. There's no one way of interpreting it, as it lends itself to a number of different readings, though my favorite comment was "That is one crazy region of space."

Digging up the link...

Ah, here it is!

via this thread on Godawful Fan Fiction:

[url] http://godawful.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20909&postdays=0&postorder=
asc&start=100]

is this link to SDN's discussion on it:

[url] http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=79962[/url]

Which has several people weighing in on it. the GAFF thread is worth looking at, too, if only because a professional scientist weighed in on the discussion (danAlywn).

Quote:

In Firefly originally the implication is that these 70 Worlds (that belong to the Alliance) are located in multiple Star Systems, a far more logical premise, and making a lot more sense when in several episodes it is indicated the Crew spend a month in the ship flying from one system to another (plus the references to 'systems' on at least a couple of occassions, and at least one reference to multiple planets in a system).

There's some sort of comment somebody made about large, "light-month" sized orbits, I think on GAFF. I unfortunately do not have the time to figur eout which it was, but I'm pretty sure it was one of danAlwyn's on GAFF.

Quote:

The core planets are those in the denser central part of that section of the (or a) galaxy, not the planets closest to the Sun.

Or, what's counted as the "center" of the Alliance's terriotory. ;)

-Runa27

Can't Stop The Signal

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Monday, November 14, 2005 6:22 AM

Hey there.

various equally plausible theories about the system they inhabit have already been discussed so much, my head could just explode from being filled too much, if I though of it all at once... but there are a few things worth remembering: in bushwhacked the alliance captain mentions placing guards around the nursery when the colonist-gone-reaver escaped. So these aren’t purely military vessels.. So they wouldn’t be placed in combat situations if possible.

I’m not sure why you assume the voyage from ETW took a few years at most, but the predominant theory is that it was undertaken by generation-ships, that travel for decades, tens of decades... generations, right. My personal theory is stasis ships. You can pack in more humans, tighter, you don’t feed them or worry about political unrest. Such ships could take thousands of years, and the culture will still remain intact, as to the humans, they just took a nap and had arrived at their new Zion (as such, the thousands of years the trip took would not eat away any of the 500 year timeline gap between now and then. The timeline would be paused with the colonists.)
Remember the thing about travelling close to the speed of light is temporal dilation. The Terraforming ships (if fully automated with the most complex life forms being bacteria, protozoa and fungi on ice) could have left ETW at a much greater velocity (the greater inertia would do it less damage then it would a ship full of people) so by the time the populated ships caught up to the system the Terraforming ships landed at, thousands of years of automated Terraforming would have already have happened (remember, temporal dilation)

The lingo could have changed by then, so by system, they could mean planetary orbit- no reason why they couldn’t artificially shift orbits of planets to share the same orbits, say at 180 degrees from each other (stabilized with the gravity tech they clearly have) and using the gravity tech they could use gravitational lensing to increase or decrease the amount of light each planet gets, widening the habitable band.

about the Terraforming (which would have to have started long before the first colonists from ETW arrived/awoke)- in Our Mrs Reynolds the sensor array for the pirates (the bad ones, not our ones) was on a shattered sphere, when compared to serenity, the sphere must be quite small, so cant be a natural moon, but could be leftovers from the Terraforming. All you need to do is melt down our asteroid belts, and we have enough mass for dozens of planets (inc. Oort cloud for delicious fluidy goodness), so this 'lil moon' could be some cast off planetary slag that was hit by a missile during the war.

phew.. umm.. im gonna go do... something... uhh... yeah

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Monday, November 14, 2005 6:34 AM

DONCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by PurpleYin:
All you need to do is melt down our asteroid belts, and we have enough mass for dozens of planets...

Well, no, actually.

If you lumped together all the asteroids in the solar system, you'd get something considerably smaller than Earth's moon.

I'm not including the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects, because they're mostly icy and (as somebody once said) hard to get to. Even if you wanted to include them, they still wouldn't have enough mass to make up a lot of planets (as far as we know).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.

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Monday, November 14, 2005 7:02 AM

ahh, you're right, sorry.

but the principle still stands, the system in FF could have much larger asteroid belts than us (especially if its a large star..)

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Monday, November 14, 2005 12:27 PM

VOLANGENERAL

Well if you think about it we really have no concept on how large space is and for all we know its possible for there to be a start big enough to support the many planets. Its also possivle there are to large stars doing the same thing as plouto and charon ( I forget the scientific name). Lastly were thinking about this in our limited human knowlege of the universe technaclly we know squat about what could be happening else where.

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Monday, November 14, 2005 12:45 PM

DAISYCUTTER

Where was it written that there were 70+ planets?

As for the firefly/serenity change, I reckon its down to the fact that the firefly series intro contradicts itself a bit, and they did the intro for serenity differently to clarify a few things.

Snippet from firefly intro (if I remember correctly)

"the Earth was used up, and we had to go elsewhere. We've found another galaxy, with many Earths..."

Although the wording may not be exact, I specifically remember there being mentioned a 'galaxy' and 'Earths'. Two things to note:
-Why would they need to go to a whole new galaxy?
-If there are so many 'Earths' why use terreforming equipment?

This introduction is not on the DVD boxset, but is included on some episodes when they are shown on the Sci-fi channel

-------------------------------------
Q: Why don't we just raise the defensive shields?
A: A superb suggestion with just two major drawbacks. One, we don't have any defensive shields. And two, we don't have any defensive shields. Technically speaking thats only one flaw, but it was such a big one I thought I mention it twice.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 5:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by tethys:
Here's your answer(s). Was impressed with the pure science aspect of this, so if your astronomically inclined (and not just a "nay-sayer"), you should enjoy this a bit.
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue439/labnotes.html

Cheers Tethys, I hadn't seen that particular article before, although I am familiar with several of the concepts from an interest in Astronomy and stuff when I was younger... The "hot sun" concept can of course also be caused by a binary star and so on... Purpleyin's post above also touches on some of this as well... Although the latter opens a whole new can of worms!!

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 5:52 PM

BELACGOD

Quote:
Originally posted by Diego:

I still feel that the Dortmunder-type cruiser design seems too akward to be a line of battle dreadnought/battleship, but I could totally buy them as command ship/carriers in a role like our modern day aircraft carriers.

Why are they awkward? They don't need to be aerodynamic if they spend their whole lives in space. They could be shaped like anything.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 6:03 PM

...FWIW seems to me the technology issue is kinda seperate again, and a big one!

The suggestion that any civilisation that has highly advanced technology for Terra Forming (and the implication of planetary gravity altering capability), FTL Communications (they use Tachyon Beams IIRC), extremely advanced Medical Facilites & Cabailities, extremely advanced Spaceship Design (the gigantic Alliance Cruisers), very robust Spaceship Design (Serenity gets pretty rough treatment, enters and leaves atmosphere repeatedly without major maintenance, and keeps flying on the smell of an oily rag and some coaxing from Kaylee), Artificial Gravity (on space ships & similar), High Tech Cities and Generally High Tech Population (as depicted on Ariel and in a couple of other scenes elsewhere of 'Core' Planets), Advanced Energy & Sonic Weapons, and so on, and has crossed thousands of light years to colonize a hundred planets and moons or whatever, yet does not have FTL propulsion on it's space craft is a bit of a stretch...

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 7:44 PM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

Quote:
Originally posted by Mycenius:

...FWIW seems to me the technology issue is kinda seperate again, and a big one!

The suggestion that any civilisation that has highly advanced technology ...yada, yada, yada... yet does not have FTL propulsion on it's space craft is a bit of a stretch...

All of those other things might be a remote possibility in 500 years, but very few scientists today think that FTL will ever be possible. Just because it has been used in almost every other SF series and film doesn't mean we will ever have it. Most of those other shows also had sound in space, but that doesn't mean that is realistic either.

I've watched the series at least 17 times so far, and the BDM a total of 8 times. I do not think they contradict each other. It was never specified in the series whether it was one solar system or a group of systems (but my theory has always been it was one), there was never any indication they had FTL, and I am positive the only time a number was mentioned in regards to planets was the deleted scene from "Our Mrs. Reynolds."

Mal's intro to the episodes as originally aired and as seen recently on the Sci-Fi Channel has to be taken as "poetic license." No specific number is mentioned, but he says that a "whole new galaxy of earths" had been terraformed. In that context he is using galaxy simply to mean a very large number, not that they traveled to a different galaxy, which of course would have necessitated FTL.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 8:24 PM

SLOWSMURF

Quote:
Where was it written that there were 70+ planets?

As for the firefly/serenity change, I reckon its down to the fact that the firefly series intro contradicts itself a bit, and they did the intro for serenity differently to clarify a few things.

Snippet from firefly intro (if I remember correctly)

"the Earth was used up, and we had to go elsewhere. We've found another galaxy, with many Earths..."

Although the wording may not be exact, I specifically remember there being mentioned a 'galaxy' and 'Earths'. Two things to note:
-Why would they need to go to a whole new galaxy?
-If there are so many 'Earths' why use terreforming equipment?

This introduction is not on the DVD boxset, but is included on some episodes when they are shown on the Sci-fi channel

I remember that line. It's "A whole new galaxy of earths"(or something very close to that effect, it does *not* say they went to a new galaxy, though it could mean that as well) The thing is however, Mal is speaking it. Mal might use "galaxy" to refer to a bunch. The book one says new solar system. So assuming neither is wrong, solar system it is.

Also, apparently the unaired pilot(?) specifically says galaxy and means it(taken from another thread here, google it if you want to see), I have NO idea if that is acurate. But the show and movie *never* explicitly say it is more than a solar system. Many things are ambiguous however, and you still have the magical solar system/terraforming. Just accept that part for purposes of the show.

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 7:40 AM

It's not streamlining that I was concerned about but balance. It's hard to tell where the center of mass on those suckers is, but it looks to me as if the engines are not distributed optimally. I could be wrong though.

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 7:52 AM

VELOXI

Remember the words of the great Shatner...

"It's just a TV show, Damnit, it's just a TV show..."

or the foundation set up by the Warner brothers and their sister, Dot...

The Please-Please-Please Get a Life Foundation...

Seriously, it's science FICTION. Enjoy the narrative and stop worrying about the minute details. ;)

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 8:37 AM

BELACGOD

Quote:
Originally posted by Diego:
It's not streamlining that I was concerned about but balance. It's hard to tell where the center of mass on those suckers is, but it looks to me as if the engines are not distributed optimally. I could be wrong though.

They've got artificial gravity. Center of mass doesn't matter.

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 3:16 PM

can we not forget those ships had civilians on them, and with their size would probably be detectable through the ion-cloud.

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 4:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Belacgod:
Quote:

They've got artificial gravity. Center of mass doesn't matter.

I suppose that maybe they could compensate and move the center of mass that way, although I remain skeptical. Yeah, their magical artificial galaxy is a nebulous enough concept that you might be able to ignore thrust vectors, but it sounds like a cop-out to me.

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 10:10 AM

CAIUS

My personal theory is that the Dortmunder type cruiser is a post Unification War developement, and that there are not that many of them. Further, it's purpose is mostly to keep the border worlds in line.

It may of may not be the sort of thing you want fighting off an enemy fleet, but it's just the sort of thing you want to send to do a fly-by of a moon that's feelin' a bit uppity. As the comander of the ship you have options ranging from landing a major assault force to slaging a couple of cities.

-Caius

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 1:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
[B}All of those other things might be a remote possibility in 500 years, but very few scientists today think that FTL will ever be possible.

There is however an increasing number who believe it may be possible (at least in theory) using the folding space or worm hole concepts... Whether it ever could because of the energy needed is a different question...

I'm not so naive to think just because lots of Sci-Fi TV shows have it it's gonna happen! All I was saying is Firefly had a lot of things in it that implied FTL travel and don't necessarily make 'as much' sense without it (e.g. Out Of Gas episode has about 6 things/events in it that are questionable IMHO if FTL travel isn't possible).

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 1:21 PM

...oh, and Artifical Gravity and the ability to terraform the 'gravity' of a planet are far more extreme and 'far-fetched' than FTL drives - in fact to do the former (modify gravity) it's quite likely you would need the same tech that powers the later (FTL Travel) anyway - since they would quite likely be interrelated (energy-gravity relationship)...

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 4:07 PM

DALTONSPENCE

Quote:
Originally posted by Mycenius:
...oh, and Artifical Gravity and the ability to terraform the 'gravity' of a planet are far more extreme and 'far-fetched' than FTL drives - in fact to do the former (modify gravity) it's quite likely you would need the same tech that powers the later (FTL Travel) anyway - since they would quite likely be interrelated (energy-gravity relationship)...

Please don't talk science, you'll just make Joss cry. ;) While the Serenity RPG is not the show or movie and is therefore not strictly canon, it does provide somewhat pausible explanations for both making it a fairly big gun. If there is truly no FTL tech in the 'verse, one thing from the game can give us a sense of scale; the maximum comm lag from "One side of the 'Verse to the other" is listed as 10 hours (page 105). That gives us a system diameter of 10 light hours or roughly 72 AU. As to why there are so many "stars" in such a small volume, my pet theory is that grav tech is so advanced that the colonists could "stellarform" some gas supergiants a la the monoliths of 2010 to make their satellite systems ripe for terraforming. (Sure it's a half-baked idea, but that's what puts the elastic in the suspenders of disbelief.

)

Dalton "What was that snap I just heard?" Spence

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 4:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DaltonSpence:
Please don't talk science, you'll just make Joss cry. ;) While the Serenity RPG is not the show or movie and is therefore not strictly canon, it does provide somewhat pausible explanations...make their satellite systems ripe for terraforming. (Sure it's a half-baked idea, but that's what puts the elastic in the suspenders of disbelief. )

Yeah! Don't get me wrong I love the show and the movie - And I can live with exteme concepts as long as they are consistent

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 5:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Caius:
My personal theory is that the Dortmunder type cruiser is a post Unification War developement, and that there are not that many of them. Further, it's purpose is mostly to keep the border worlds in line.-Caius

That's pretty much what my feeling on them was— big peacekeeping and patrol platforms rather than line of battle ships. The only part of your argument I'm not sure about is the rarity of the Dortmunders. It is hard to say how common they were. There was a bias towards this cruiser type in the series, but one could come up with a number of alternative explanations.

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Monday, November 21, 2005 7:02 PM

DALTONSPENCE

Quote:
Originally posted by Diego:
Quote:
Originally posted by Caius:
My personal theory is that the Dortmunder type cruiser is a post Unification War developement, and that there are not that many of them. Further, it's purpose is mostly to keep the border worlds in line.-Caius

That's pretty much what my feeling on them was— big peacekeeping and patrol platforms rather than line of battle ships. The only part of your argument I'm not sure about is the rarity of the Dortmunders. It is hard to say how common they were. There was a bias towards this cruiser type in the series, but one could come up with a number of alternative explanations.

Someone on a RPG mapping list asked for advice on deckplans for a skyplex, which got me thinking about how really large space stations and craft might be constructed in the 'Verse. Rather than going through all the troubles involved with orbital construction, why not build them on the ground on a gravity screen, then tow them into space when they are finished? No expensive space training and life support for the construction crews, no rotating people dirtside just when they get the hang of things due to cumulative space radiation exposure, and the frame is already prestressed for grav loads along the base plane. Could explain the vertical towers on a platform design of the Dortmunder, and doesn't preclude adding some finishing touches in space. Why, whole cities could be built and sent into space that way.

Dalton "all we need now are some spin dizzies" Spence

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Monday, November 21, 2005 7:48 PM

ALAND

I imagine the big ruisers as more like mobile alliance command and control centers. Kind of what you'd get if you stuck part of the Pentagon on an aircraft carrier. They may also include judicial, beaurocratic, and covert arms of the government. They exert alliance control wherever they think its needed.

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Monday, November 21, 2005 9:47 PM

everywhere?

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 12:27 PM