'Earth That Was...' by Kurgan

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

'Earth That Was...'

POSTED BY: KURGAN
UPDATED: Sunday, August 10, 2003 16:04
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VIEWED: 5920
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Thursday, July 24, 2003 2:43 PM

Watching 'Trash' the other day I got to thinking more about 'Earth That Was' and the legends surrounding it...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but *if* the Firefly 'verse is at least roughly a continuation of ours (and I appreciate that races, languages and odd artifacts aside there's no real proof of that) that the whole 'Earth gets used up and we teraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths' thing has to take place within roughly 500 years.

So based on that, here's a few questions that have been niggling me:

1) How long does it take to terrafom a planet, and what's the long term point of spending what might be a lot of effort doing it, just for a few scabby settlers to potter about in? Who foots the bill, and why? Or were the core planets the ones terraformed, and the frontier worlds are just the ones lucky enough to be habitable anyway?

2) How long ago was what must have been a pretty vast interstellar migration, and how was that achieved?

3) 500 years is *not* that long a time - consider how well 16th century Earth's history is recorded, why is 'Earth That Was' spoken of in Firefly as something almost as mythical as Arthurian legend? (And yes, I do appreciate that not many folks today are experts in 16th c. history)!

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 3:10 PM

CORPRUGA

Well, I don't really know the answers to any of those questions, but I'll take a shot anyway.

1) I've no idea how long it would take to "terraform" a planet, but I would imagine it would vary from planet to planet. It would probably involve balancing oxygen in the atmosphere (perhaps by way of plants?), and I bet that would take a while. I guess terraforming time would be measured in years. As to why, I sort of get the impression that a lot of these habitable worlds are not very large. As the population on one world grows, the people eventually reach the planet's capacity. In order to maintain a certain quality of life, I imagine settlers set out to a nearby planet because their planet's resources have runout. In sort of a gradual expansion process, more and more planets get terraformed.

2) Um...whoops. I sort of worked that in with the above answer. As to how long ago...didn't you say 500 years in your post? I mean, technology doesn't seem vastly advanced, so if the Firefly 'verse is a continuation of our own, 500 years in the future seems to be a reasonable setting. I would think that the migration would have been a continual thing occurring over centuries, once it got started. I mean, it's still sort of going on in the show, if they've still got "settlers."

3) I don't know...it doesn't seem that mythical to me in the Firefly 'verse. Both Inara and Simon seem to talk about it in a historical sense. I guess it seems kind of mythical because it represents an entirely different era, so talking about "Earth That Was" is kind of like us talking about the Roman Empire or something.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

"It's a thingie! A fiendish thingie!" --George Harrison, Help!

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 3:51 PM

JOHNNYREB

***Originally posted by Kurgan:
"Watching 'Trash' the other day I got to thinking more about 'Earth That Was' and the legends surrounding it...

1) How long does it take to terrafom a planet, and what's the long term point of spending what might be a lot of effort doing it, just for a few scabby settlers to potter about in? Who foots the bill, and why? Or were the core planets the ones terraformed, and the frontier worlds are just the ones lucky enough to be habitable anyway?***

Okay, Let me give it a whirl now. Firefly never answers any of these questions. But, if we are to learn from history, private companies probably footed the bill for teraforming other planets, not out of the goodness of their hearts either. Colonies are ususally set up to make money. I suspect that colonization was going on for some time before Earth finally crapped out. When it was time to move people from point A to point B, the other planets were all ready to go thanks to the private sector. That would explain why some planets are more posh than others. If one planet is teraformed by a mining company, it would be as posh and elegant as a West Virginian mining town. If another planet is teraformed by a tourism company, it would probably have all the amenities one would expect to have while on vacation. And don't forget, the U.S. wasn't the only one in on the colonization. Every country in the world was probably colonizing and teraforming for years before the "cataclysm."

***2) How long ago was what must have been a pretty vast interstellar migration, and how was that achieved?***

One can only guess. But like I maintain, the migration was probably happening slowly but surely for years before people decided to pick up the pace or die with the Earth. What's more, we don't know how many people actually died with the Earth, if any.

***3) 500 years is *not* that long a time - consider how well 16th century Earth's history is recorded, why is 'Earth That Was' spoken of in Firefly as something almost as mythical as Arthurian legend? (And yes, I do appreciate that not many folks today are experts in 16th c. history)!***

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment that people treat the Earth as a legend. Corpruga is right about Inara's and Simon's speaking of it historically. If anything, they probably romanticize it; or the masses are illiterate and all they know about Earth is what has been handed to them by oral tradition; or 500 years ago is a long time (for an individual, not a species)and it's hard to speak of something you don't remember like it actually existed. Any one of those three scenarios could account for what seems to be a "legendary Earth." Also, legends always abound no matter how hard you try to squash them. Colombus and his contemporaries DIDN'T think the Earth was flat. They knew it was round because Atlas is always depicted holding an orb, not a disc. Washington never cut down a cherry tree and 'fessed up. That was made up by a newspaper colomninst in the nineteenth century. And, yet the legends persist...

Also, I touched on this briefly, 500 years is a long time. In 1503, they didn't have electricity, refrigeration, computers, automobiles, airplanes, nuclear weapons, sneakers, radios, or t.v.'s. They never would have dreamed that we could put a man on the moon. Look how far the United States has come since 1776--that's only 230 years or so. Why wouldn't we be able to achieve light speed, teraform planets, and colonize space in 500 years?

Whew, well, that about does it. I hope that helps, and I hope people actually take the time to read this. Ach! Fingers...cramping! Eyes...blurring! Describing...symptoms! Can't go on...

Viva Firefly!

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 4:44 PM

CANADIANJON

I don't even think they've found a single planet resembling earth yet. Ones I remember hearing about are:
some gas giants
a planet with 1000 times earth's gravity
one that circles its sun in about 5 days
one that is so close to its sun its evaporating.

If any planets were found, they would be pretty far away, and they'd need light speed, or wormholes (or something) to get there.

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 5:06 PM

PAP

I might be speaking out of turn, but to me, the whole point of Firefly is that it isn't about the technology.

Who cares, really?

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 5:45 PM

JOHNNYREB

No, you are quite right. They seem to go out of their way to tone down the technology. ("Can you put that into Captain Dummy talk?") But, that, to some, is all the more reason to discuss it. It leaves something to think about.

Viva Firefly!

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 7:14 PM

CCT

The reason all the planets they've found are huge freaks is because a plain, tiny little earth-like planet is way too small to see. In a lot of cases the way they've detected these planets is by measuring their effect on their sun- either tiny differences in the suns light as the planet passes between it and us, or variations in the suns orbit because of the pull of the planet. To do either of these things measurably takes something that makes Jupiter look puny. So, for now, the only discoveries are the easiest to see beasts.

BUT, this is still good- establishing that planets are common is important. If we found that hardly any suns had big planets would imply that there probably aren't many little ones either.

Of course, until I get to see them they're all make believe anyway. Like France, or Japan... I'm not really 100% sure either exist. Or California for that matter!

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 7:25 PM

WHOODAHN

Quote:
Originally posted by cct:
Of course, until I get to see them they're all make believe anyway. Like France, or Japan... I'm not really 100% sure either exist. Or California for that matter!

California actually slipped into the ocean during the 1989 earthquake. It was a government plot not to let the general public know of the mass destruction so they continue to send out news reports to make it look like California is still here. It's not the first time we've had an actor for a governer.

There is a secret government group that tracks down any leaks...hold on, someone is knocking at the doo..........

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 10:12 PM

MANIACNUMBERONE

Well, from what little I know (and that's pretty little -ask anybody) the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a galaxy about 400 light days from earth. Recently, about 20 yrs ago, another closer galaxy was found about a third of the distance to the LMC. The way they found the closer one was by finally figuring out that it was really spread out and obscured by the milky way. (I forget it's name at the moment. Something like small dwarf galaxy, or maybe a name similar to that.) It's possible to assume that that closer galaxy could have been where the "earth that was" population went to. But I am kind of thinking that is still to far for them to have gone. More likely, an even closer galaxy was likely to have been found, (in firefly future) so that would facilitate the travel time problem.

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:09 PM

DRAKON

"1) How long does it take to terrafom a planet, and what's the long term point of spending what might be a lot of effort doing it, just for a few scabby settlers to potter about in? Who foots the bill, and why? Or were the core planets the ones terraformed, and the frontier worlds are just the ones lucky enough to be habitable anyway? "

There is no data either way for your last question. There is also a question of what these various worlds were like in the beginning, which will govern how long it takes to terraform. The closer it is, the quicker it will be. In a lot of cases, I can imagine that simply getting the atmosphere right will do much of the work. Now how do you get that gas to the planet?

Dropping gaseous asteroids onto the surface would take care of most of that work, and rather quickly, depending on the chemical makeup of the rock. A planet with an ice ring nearby would have a wealth of material to pump up the atmosphere.

As for who foots the bill, that depends more on culture and economics. If it is a matter of just getting the air right, then all you really need is a big enough ship to transport the gasses (in the form of ice) to where you want them. If you have a central government kind of culture, then that is who will foot the bill, the government or the tax payers. For a more free market economy, a corporation could do it, and it would be viable to do so. Imagine the land you could turn around and sell, and the profits you could make, even if the per acre price were real cheap.

As for motivation, heck, getting away from anyone else, making your own life, there is plenty of motivation out there. Ask your ancestors, if they are American, why they left the old country to come here.

2) How long ago was what must have been a pretty vast interstellar migration, and how was that achieved?

The puppet show in Heart of Gold indicates some cataclym befell the earth. And people boarded ships and left it. It would take a LOT of ships, to transport a LOT of people, to evacuate the planet. But still, it depends on the nature of the demise, which so far, Firefly has been somewhat vague about.

3) 500 years is *not* that long a time - consider how well 16th century Earth's history is recorded, why is 'Earth That Was' spoken of in Firefly as something almost as mythical as Arthurian legend? (And yes, I do appreciate that not many folks today are experts in 16th c. history)!

You answered that one yourself

Plus you also have the fact that Earth that was, ain't no more. And that adds to the mythic qualities. Just as JFK is considered with almost mythic awe these days, despite having died in the early 60's

"my kind of stupid"

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:30 PM

DRAKON

"I imagine settlers set out to a nearby planet because their planet's resources have runout."

I gotta ping ya for this, as it is a bit of a peeve with me.

Resources do NOT run out. As a matter of fact, the material composition, the mass of a planet or any body will increase over time, as it attracts dust, gas and meteors.

Oil, and other raw materials may be used, but then what? When you burn gas, the gasoline becomes CO2, which plants breathe, creating sugar and releasing oxygen. The material components don't go anywhere, do not leave the planet. They are simply changed from one combination and form to another.

The trick is figuring out what to do with this new configuration. Bury the plant matter, or press it for a million years underground, you get gasoline again. (Or engineer a bacteria that turns rotting vegitation into gasoline, as many bacteria already do in converting such material into alcohol.)

The only thing that in any way can be said to be used up, is energy. And as almost all energy is either directly or indirectly solar in nature, as long as you got a sun, this is no problem.

Unless you are constructing HUGE, and I do mean HUGE!!!! spacecrafts, you can't "use up" a planet. You can poison it, render it unfit for human life, but without space travel, everything we started with, we still got.

[Which has always got me to wondering if the "Earth got used up" story was not some kind of a plot to evacuate the Earth. A fraud perpetrated on most people. Something like the B arc in "Hitchhiker's"

"my kind of stupid"

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:41 PM

DRAKON

They are not looking, nor with present technology, can they look for earth like planets.

Gas giants are huge, and easy to find by the tug they put on their sun. Earth type planets are very small in comparision, and the tug they produce gets washed out in the noise from the surface. The amount of tug an earth pulls on the sun is about the same as the normal surface changes that such big hot balls of gas have anyway.

But that should be changing before long. There is a new technique that is coming online, having to do with using two, (or several) telescopes ganged together and checking the interference pattern produced. It should resolve an object as small as an earth type planet, and even tell you what the atmosphere of such a planet is made of.

There is a setup designed to go up in 2011 for just such a purpose. Real shiny.

"my kind of stupid"

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:45 PM

DRAKON

"Or California for that matter!"

California does exist. I live here. As hard as it is to believe, it is a real place.

So is Japan. Been there, nice people.

France, I can't tell you about.

"my kind of stupid"

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Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:51 PM

DRAKON

Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a galaxy about 400 light days from earth.

This should read 400,000 light Years! The closest star is 5 light years away. (Okay 4.95 according to Hipparcos, ya happy?)

When talking about the truly cosmic scale of intersteller and intergalactic space, it is real easy to make such slips.

The Milky way Galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years across, and the earth is roughtly 30,000 light years from the center.

I think the dwarf galaxy you are talking about was named "Snickers" astromoners have a sense of humor. There are several such galaxies around the Milky Way, most of them are being eaten by our own.

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Friday, July 25, 2003 12:43 AM

JAVIDRHO

Actually, Gas Giants are my vote to explain the large number of habitable planets in Firefly's 'verse. Gas giants like Jupiter (or larger) could, and should, have many Earth-sized moons in orbit around them (Jupiter has a few). Now, if you find one or two such Giants around a Sol-sized sun, in an orbital distance somewhere between Venus and Mars, then you might find a dozen or more moons that could be habitable (maybe with minimal teraforming required).

Best of all, this would keep us from needing superluminal (faster than light) velocities in the show.

I also think that the "whole new galaxy of worlds" was a mistake. I preferred Book's original voice over, saying "After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system, and hundreds of new Earths were teraformed and colonized..." I don't know why they changed this. To the non-science person, it doesn't matter, but I think it sticks in the craw of the rest of us. As was mentioned before, Firefly is not "hard science" but at least they should keep things reasonable when they can...

A side note: I remember being irritated back when someone in the TV show Battlestar Galactica mention "we are entering another galaxy", when they actually meant they were entering another "solar system". I was just a kid, but even I knew the difference.

In regards to the original thread - it is another term that maybe should have been different, just for us persnickety types. Maybe something like "After we destroyed the Earth" (really bad nuclear war?) or simply "A few hundred years ago, we left Earth and found a new solar system with dozens of new worlds." That would simplify things and leave the reason for leaving Earth a mystery. Also, do we really need "hundreds" of worlds for this show? I think a dozen or so would do.

----------------
SIMON: What happens if they board us?
ZOE: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing
and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

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Friday, July 25, 2003 4:06 AM

BARNEYT

The whole thing around reaching other galaxies is something I've been thinking about too (and not just for reaching the planets in the first place, but travelling between them in the series) because Firefly is not a universe that has faster than light travel...

In the pre-title introduction that Book says (rather the one that Mal does), it sounds more like they've found one new sun with hundreds of planets. If this is the case they wouldn't need inter-stellar travel once they got there, just the same sort of transport that we would be using to get to Mars (although maybe a little better...

). Actually making the exodus out to the new planets could have been done without faster than light travel using either generational ships or maybe some method of long-term sleep.

I reckon it would be the governments on old Earth who would foot the bill, if it really was decided that the whole planet needed to move then it would be a global exodus. Once people had got to the new system I guess it would be up to the individual families to settle where they want and that's where private enterprise would come in.

Of course, at this point I should point out that I've no idea what I'm talking about...

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Friday, July 25, 2003 11:05 PM

DRAKON

And just what have you got against faster than light travel?

YOur ideas about Jovians is okay, but, there is a limit to how many planets you can hold in the habitable zone of a star. And the bigger the planet, the fewer you can have, as they tend to screw up the orbits of other planets close by, as well as suck up material and prevent planets from forming.

I've always taken the "whole new galaxy of worlds" thing as poetry, rather than literal fact. There is a problem in sci fi that any explaination is considered gospel, and things like metaphor and the such get forgotten about. Or simply made up stuff to hide they don't know what they are talking about.

Just cause the captain said it, don't mean its the literal fact. He could be being poetical, or it could be in captain dummy talk.

And then there is this:
From the script for "The Message"

BOOK
There's nine armed and dangerous
desperados on this ship. You count in
at three. Why is it you didn't call
in for back-up?
(Womack skips a beat)
There's a Fed station eighty miles
from where you're standing.
(walks closer)
You got your command stripes at the
Silverhold colonies. Puts you about
eight solar systems away from your
jurisdiction...

"my kind of stupid"

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 3:09 PM

SHEPHERDOFHERMAS

I am convinced that the Earth-that-was is actually the Earth-that-is - filled with all of those people the Alliance didn't want around -- easier for the Anglo-Sino Alliance to move to new worlds and leave old problems behind. Then the Alliance could dump all of their genetic experiments that didn't go as planned and move on. Then to keep people from pining away for Earth or wanting to return to Mother Earth -- they came up with the myth of the Earth-that-was. More gorram Alliance lies....

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003 2:19 PM

PDONNY

500 years -
surely the idea of terraforming a planet involves creating an ecosystem that will sustain an atmosphere and then life, this would have to mean building it up from primative bacteria capable of survival in very harsh climates, then organisms which feed on the bacteria - and so on until you get a full working ecosystem, which given the number of possible things that could go wrong would take a long long time.
Habitable planets are extremely few and far between, so travel between them is likely to be slow, and come on we're not going to develop light speed transportation (unless something really daft happens to relativity)
Ao yeah I agree with all those who think 500 years just doesn't cut the mustard - also even with not being an historian I know of at least a few events that I can definately date to the 16th century and almost certainly more which happened then but for which I just don't know the date for.

pdonny

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 1:25 AM

DRAKON

"Habitable planets are extremely few and far between, so travel between them is likely to be slow, and come on we're not going to develop light speed transportation (unless something really daft happens to relativity)"

It appears somewhat correct on the first part. LONG term habital planets, on the order of billions of years, are probably pretty rare as there is a combination of star mass and age to consider. Higher mass stars burn faster, age faster, and die younger. But low mass stars don't put out enough energy, have very narrow habitability zones, and frequently are flare stars. All not good.

For a goldilocks planet, you need a goldilocks star.

BUT: almost all stars have habitable zones. Such that if a planet exists, it can be made habitable, even if it won't last for billions of years. A few million my suffice.

All that is needed besides a warm star, is a sutible atmosphere. Once you have that, you don't need the bacteria and other stuff to bootstrap the planet. Drop a few comets on a rock, (you get your warming almost immediately) and then you can set down seeds, trees etc. Short term terraforming ain't that difficult.

As for something "really daft" happening to relativity, it turns out that this is not necessary at all. Look in the FTL thread, there are some papers cited that indicate that withing relativity, faster than light travel is possible.

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 12:41 PM

IAMJACKSUSERNAME

Well, I'm all right. - Mal

1) "How long does it take to terrafom a planet"

Even a world like Mars would probably take many, many Terran (Earth) years, something like Venus centuries? Probably started before the humans left EarthThatWas for good.

"a lot of effort doing it, just for a few scabby settlers to potter about in?"

Maybe it's automated, and once the inner worlds were terraformed these automatic systems had nothing to do so they moved on to the outer candidates — if they could use local materials, redirected comets, asteroids, gas from gas giants, etc..

2) "How long ago was what must have been a pretty vast interstellar migration, and how was that achieved?"

If they have FTL (faster than light) travel

Select to view spoiler:

(insinuated in Mal's intro speech)

it's not an issue. If they follow the laws of nature it must've taken many Terran years, even for Terra's closest stars.

3) [only 500 years] "why is 'Earth That Was' spoken of in Firefly as something almost as mythical as Arthurian legend?"

Maybe they're ashamed of their ancestors not living sustainably.

"a lot of these habitable worlds are not very large" - Corpruga

Select to view spoiler:

They have very similar gravity to Terra, so they should have similar sizes, or wacky compositions.

"the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a galaxy about 400 light days from earth [...] another closer galaxy was found" - ManiacNumberOne
"[LMC] 400,000 light Years!" - Drakon

LMC = 179 000 light years away < http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/lmc.html>, Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (SagDEG) 80 000 light years < http://www.seds.org/messier/more/sagdeg.html> (I read that page this week finding it via an APOD link :)) — Luna (Terra's moon) is about a light *second* away I think, and Sol (Terra's star, the sun) is about 8 light *minutes* away. If Firefly has FTL capabilities

Select to view spoiler:

(let's hope Mal didn't really mean galaxy)

, then they're probably still in the Milky way.

If they can terraform, what about Mars, and after 500 years, Terra?

--
I am Jack's username
"Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?" - Mal

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 5:54 PM

MELEAUX

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
"Or California for that matter!"

California does exist. I live here. As hard as it is to believe, it is a real place.

So is Japan. Been there, nice people.

France, I can't tell you about.

California does exist... North Dakota however is a government conspiracy... No such place

"my kind of stupid"

She understands, she doesn't comprehend

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Thursday, August 7, 2003 1:07 PM

RUTHIE

Drakon posted this above:-

Quote:
And then there is this:
From the script for "The Message"

BOOK
There's nine armed and dangerous
desperados on this ship. You count in
at three. Why is it you didn't call
in for back-up?
(Womack skips a beat)
There's a Fed station eighty miles
from where you're standing.
(walks closer)
You got your command stripes at the
Silverhold colonies. Puts you about
eight solar systems away from your
jurisdiction

I read this thread earlier today, and THEN watched 'The Message' for the first time (recorded while I was away on hols)

So I was very interested to hear that, in the version shown on Sci-Fi UK, this dialogue has been slightly altered. Instead of saying eight solar systems he says eight sectors

This is heard quite clearly, but the picture at the time shows the cop's face and Book's back, so an alteration in the dialogue could have been easily dubbed over.

If this is a deliberate change made by ME, it must mean something. To me, it says that they are moving away from the idea of seperate solar systems, and replacing it with the notion of 'sectors', which could mean anything - whatever they decide it means.

Personally, I like the idea that there is only one solar system, perhaps reached by generational ships several hundered years earlier, and then travelled around without FTL travel.

This would be a good reason for the mythical status of Earth - remembered in stories by the uneducated, and in history by the educated, but unreachable in a single lifetime by anyone. It wouldn't really matter if Earth was actually 'used up', or just uncomfortably full, because the colonists who left would be totally out of touch, possibly even living in a different time-frame due to time dilation effects on a multi-year journey at near light speed.

They may have been encouraged to forget about Earth, and to think of it as 'used up', to prevent homesickness.

To the other Heinlein fans, I say Farmer in the Sky, Time for the Stars, Methusala's Children, Orphans of the Sky, and back to Farmer in the Sky and Space Family Stone, plus quite a few short stories. Fans will know what I mean (I hope!)

(Sorry if I'm replying to several threads at once here - I've been reading them all today, trying to catch up on a month's worth of discussion!)

*******************
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)

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Sunday, August 10, 2003 6:53 AM

IAMJACKSUSERNAME

Well, I'm all right. - Mal

>> From the script for "The Message"
>> Puts you about eight solar systems
>> away from your jurisdiction
>> -- Drakon
>
> in the version shown on Sci-Fi UK, this dialogue
> has been slightly altered. Instead of saying
> eight solar systems he says eight
> sectors
> -- Ruthie

The SABC3 version, which was the TV world premiere on 2003-07-15, also has "sectors".
--
I am Jack's username
"Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?" - Mal

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Sunday, August 10, 2003 4:04 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.

Quote:
"Habitable planets are extremely few and far between, so travel between them is likely to be slow, and come on we're not going to develop light speed transportation (unless something really daft happens to relativity)"

True but since Firefly is fiction it's likely that there is some manner of FTL travel in their 'verse.

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