My theory about guns in Firefly by Ringwraith

Indeed. They obviously do have artificial gravity, since Serenity always seems to have "up" and "down". But if there must be some practical limit to this tech. If they were able to fiddle with gravity on a planetary scale, they wouldn't bother with terraforming planets -- it'd be a lot easier to just build giant space habitats.

Forgive me for pointing this out: the opposite of artificial gravity is natural hilarity.

About moons: a moon is not necessarily smaller than Earth. A moon is just a non-luminous body that orbits a planet, which in turn is a non-luminous body that orbits a sun. (A luminous body is a sun, no matter what it orbits.) I think all the moons in our solar system are smaller than Earth, though maybe some of Jupiter's bigger moons come close.

Now, there's been talk of terraforming our moon, and Mars, which both have which relatively low gravity. But that'd be pretty hard -- the atmosphere isn't gonna stay put. Also, nobody on Firefly seems to have the kind of health issues you'd get from being raised on a high- or low-gravity world. So apparently all the worlds are roughly the same gravity as earth.

Here's my latest theory. Some time in the late 21st century, somebody discovers a solar system that's generally a lot more massive than ours. Now every sun has a kind of "life zone" -- the region where a planet is far enough away to keep water from boiling away, but not far enough to lock up all the water in ice deposits. There are three such planets in our own solar system, but one (Mars) is too small. Venus is about the right size, and might be terraformed in a century or two.

But why settle for just one new world when you can have hundreds? Because this new system has a bigger "life zone" (bigger sun) and a lot more rocky matter, there are a dozen or so planets that catch just the right amount of heat from the sun.

Better yet, the outer system contains about 20 gas giants. Like the gas giants in our own system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), these planets are almost-Suns. That is, they're not big enough to get a solar fusion cycle going. But they do put out some heat, and that's enough extra heat so that each gas giant has a life zone of its own. And each has another half-dozen Earth-sized moons.

None of these planets has an oxygen atmosphere. Which sounds bad -- but is actually a good thing. Free oxygen isn't stable -- it always reacts with something to form an oxide. So you only have free oxygen when you have life forms that turn the oxides back into free oxygen. (Like plants do.) And you don't want to settle a world that's evolved its own life -- it's bound to have evolved differently from Earth life, and even a small difference would create a dangerously toxic environment for your settlers.

So you start from scratch. Your first wave of colonists takes up residence in space habitats. They capture comets and carbonaceous asteroids and bombard the earth-sized planets and moons. This fertilizes the planets with enough water and complex chemicals to get life started. Then they seed the world with microbes and plants to kick-start the ecology. Finally, they sit back and wait for the next wave of colonists, which is timed to coincide with the completion of the teraforming process for the first few planets.

Now this kind of artificial ecology is not going to be very complicated. The complexity of earth's ecology, with its thousands of species of interdependent plants, animals, and microbes, took hundreds of millions of years to evolve. Maybe you can hurry the process a little -- but you can't compress all that evolution into the century or two before the second wave arrives. So you settle for a few basic life forms, just enough to keep the oxygen cycle going long enough for the settlers to introduce new species -- in particular, the crops and livestock on which they subsist.

This primitive, artificial ecology explains the bleak landscape on all the worlds Serenity visits.

JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, September 26, 2002 12:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Heritage:
Personally, I'd like to believe that in the vastness of space, there is intelligent life out there - I just think that a) we'll probably never run into it, and b) if we did, it would be so unlike our concept of 'intelligence' as to be completely incomprehensible.

That's kind of a distinction without a difference. Maybe cockroaches are smarter than we are, but in such an alien way that we'll never appreciate their intelligence. So for our purposes, roaches remain stupid bugs, no matter how smart they are to each other.

JOSH, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, September 26, 2002 12:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:

I note we have available today mass produced rifles and pistols originally designed over the last 300 years, from flintlocks to Semi-auto pistols and rifles.

So now you got me curious: what's the oldest firearm design still in production? For actual use-in-anger or hunting, that is. Not "reproductions" sold only to collectors and re-enactors.

JOSH, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, September 26, 2002 12:37 PM

SHUGGIE

Thanks for the explanation Zic.

The 'hundreds of planets' thing kinda bothered me because it seemed like they'd avoided the FTL trap by having just one system only to create a new one.

Shug

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, September 26, 2002 1:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:
Thanks for the explanation Zic.

The 'hundreds of planets' thing kinda bothered me because it seemed like they'd avoided the FTL trap by having just one system only to create a new one.

Shug

Well, I had fun writing it. Just remember that this is unauthorized Zicsoft Cosmology and in no way endorsed by Joss Whedon (TM), Mutant Enemy, or Fox Television!

JOSH^HS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, September 26, 2002 2:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:

I note we have available today mass produced rifles and pistols originally designed over the last 300 years, from flintlocks to Semi-auto pistols and rifles.

So now you got me curious: what's the oldest firearm design still in production? For actual use-in-anger or hunting, that is. Not "reproductions" sold only to collectors and re-enactors.

Most states have hunting seasons for blackpowder rifles. A few even have them for cross bows as well as long bows. This means there are some very modern muzzleloading rifles available to hunters wanting a second season. Or in some cases third. Figure cap lock rifles have been around since 1800 or so.

In cartrige arms the Winchester 73 is still being copied. Wild Western shooting sports sill use pre-civil war ear Colt revolvers and some double barrel muzzle loading shotguns.

The best automatic pistol ever designed for self defense is the M1911 Colt Army Automatic designed by John Browning.

Jeff
Who still keeps a .45 Automatic Colt Pistol handy.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, September 26, 2002 2:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:

I note we have available today mass produced rifles and pistols originally designed over the last 300 years, from flintlocks to Semi-auto pistols and rifles.

So now you got me curious: what's the oldest firearm design still in production? For actual use-in-anger or hunting, that is. Not "reproductions" sold only to collectors and re-enactors.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, September 26, 2002 2:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:

I note we have available today mass produced rifles and pistols originally designed over the last 300 years, from flintlocks to Semi-auto pistols and rifles.

So now you got me curious: what's the oldest firearm design still in production? For actual use-in-anger or hunting, that is. Not "reproductions" sold only to collectors and re-enactors.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, September 27, 2002 9:06 PM

PTROPE

Actually more about the "solar system ..."

Technically, what they have isn't a "solar" system, because that's what we have here with our star, Sol. What they have is a stellar system, and that description also encompasses conglomerations of multiple stars in the same general area.

It's unfortunate that they put the VO on the show, at least as it's worded. It would also be nice if they gave a few more details about the area covered by the Alliance and frontier, and the speeds the society is capable of utilizing. But the evidence of the show just doesn't support the idea that it's a single star with hundreds of planets and moons that could be terraformed and thrive under a single sun. Mal's mention of the Reavers' having gone out to the edge of the galaxy also gives the impression that the Alliance is more than just the space around a single star; he didn't say the Reavers had gone to the rim of the system.

I hope the interpretation of "system" is a broad one, although I don't think the size of the space is going to make a difference with the stories that occur within it. Besides, if all of their ships are confined to speeds well below the speed of light, a single system of hundreds of worlds is effectively as large as a galactic quadrant; it's not the distance, so much as the time it takes to cross it.

On a cellular level, I'm really quite busy ...

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 7, 2002 6:15 PM

WILLIAM08

All responses very well thought out. Let me toss out another idea: most folks don't have advanced energy weapons because the Alliance won't allow such weapons to be traded and possessed on the frontier. It is in the interest of those in power to limit the weaponry accessible to those not in power.

William08

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, October 8, 2002 9:11 AM

As thegn mentioned, I`m willing to bet that gauss rifles will be an effective ship to ship armament.
They probably will not replace firearms.

Sadgeezer, have you ever SEEN what a 12 guage will do to an animal? You would be mighty surprised! With materiels that will probably be invented within 100 years, I could devise shotgun ammo that could kill a human out to 1500 yards. How much more performance do you need? In real world applications, an energy weapon would have little, if any, advantages over a projectile weapon. Shotguns are EXTREMELY versatile, already having loads ranging from the old standby 00 buck load, to little nastys such as AP(armor piercing) loads and flechettes(about a dozen sharp steel darts in a single cartridge), and non-lethal(on a good day) loads like rubber buckshot, and beanbags. Only someone completly unaware of the performance of a modern shotgun would say it will be obsolete within a milinnia.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, October 9, 2002 7:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ptrope:
It's unfortunate that they put the VO on the show, at least as it's worded.

I'd imagine the VO going away shortly, much as it did with Buffy. That is, of course, hoping that the show stays on the air, and I sure hope it does.

Rex!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 10, 2002 9:24 AM

SADGEEZER

Quote:
Originally posted by loonytoon:
Sadgeezer, have you ever SEEN what a 12 guage will do to an animal? You would be mighty surprised! With materiels that will probably be invented within 100 years, I could devise shotgun ammo that could kill a human out to 1500 yards. How much more performance do you need?

I've never shot an animal with a shotgun, but I've been clay pigeon shooting pleanty of times. I've never said that shotguns aren't districtive, Quite the opposite! Firing a shotgun on a spaceship would be crazy! You've not only kill whatever you would be aiming at, but the ricochet would probably kill you too and damage most of the instruments in the room.

In 500 years I would think that the projectile weapons of today would be obsolete because they used too many resources and required things like gunpowder and metal and worse still, that they would be iniscriminate in what they distroyed.

It's my guess that an energy weapon would be easier to produce, cheaper and could be used in a whole range of ways from demolition to entertainment. But it doesn't have to be laser weapons, they could use all sorts of energy - all of which would be easier to use better in terms of firepower and discrimination.

If I were to face you in a duel with a Star Trek phaser and you had a pump action shotgun, you would loose. You wouldn't be so much damaged as 'gone'.

Again, my point is, if people have the technology to fly around in spaceships as advanced as Firefly they would be able to use weapons which were more effective than shotguns and six-shooters. More importantly, they would have the determination to do so.

SadGeezers Guide to Firefly
http://www.sadgeezer.com/firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 10, 2002 9:25 AM

SADGEEZER

Ok, don't take my word for it, read what CNN say about the latest plans for laser weapons on US millitary aricraft.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/09/25/laser.weapon/index.html

Or Janes Defence Weekly.

http://www.janes.com/defence/air_forces/news/jdw/jdw020809_1_n.shtml

SadGeezers Guide to Firefly
http://www.sadgeezer.com/firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 10, 2002 10:38 AM

#1 question: If I where to face in a dual as you described, why would I automatically lose with the shotgun? At close range, the phaser has no advantage. You still have to hit me, which is just as hard, actually harder, with a phaser. The disintegration thing with phasers is scientifically impossible. If I was hit in the shoulder, and the beam had enough energy to vaporize the rest of my body, it would emit enough heat that it would encinerate the firers hand, at the least.

Collateral damage: Shotguns don`t ricochet as much as you think they do, and energy weapons would be worse, for several reasons. A energy weapon works from the transfer of energy and heat. Energy can be redirected by certain surfaces, such as a mirror. Put a mirror in the hot sun for an hour, and it is not nearly as hot as anything else, as it rediects the energy. Energy follows the path of least resistance. Give it somewhere else to go, and you are fine. Heat is emitted, which in most ideas, is what does the damage. Heat cannot be harnessed %100, there for bleed-off heat will damage anything heat sensetive, and electronics are quite sensitive.
EMP would be produced on the scale of wiping all electronics in the room, so it won`t destroy the instument like a shotgun, but it will wipe all memory, so its pretty damn useless. It would be much easier to shield against projectiles than energy.

In an atmoshere, a energy weapon would give away your position better than a neon sign!

As for resources, you are assuming energy is free. It takes quite a bit of energy to produce power, there is more than just flipping the light switch. Frontier planets would find it much easier to produce gunpowder than electricity.

And in the future, the shotgun would have no realistic range limitations compare to a energy weapon, and can deliver explosive and other exotic payloads.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 10, 2002 10:46 AM

Plus you are assuming science will advance at the same rate for 500 years. science advances in bursts, then people will go with very meager improvements for a while. New technology is quickly reaching a plataeu(sp), we will not keep learning new tech every day. Technology can only be advanced so far, befor you get the law of diminishing returns, where it would be faster and more ecomical to use the old tech, than develop new. Say you find a new world that it would take 40 years to get to, than spend 39 years figuring out tech to make the trip one year. You probably have been better off just using the old tech.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 10, 2002 12:58 PM

SADGEEZER

Quote:
Originally posted by Thegn:
Quote:
Originally posted by SadGeezer:
If I were to face you in a duel with a Star Trek phaser and you had a pump action shotgun, you would loose. You wouldn't be so much damaged as 'gone'.
Except that a Star Trek phasers operates on some kind of magical technology that has never even been explained, and a shotgun is a real device. I could just as easily rewrite this statement thusly:

"If I were to face you in a duel with Zeus's Magical Lightening Bolt and you had a pump action shotgun, you would loose. You wouldn't be so much damaged as 'gone'. "

Ha ha, but not before I had fallen to my knees and prayed for forgiveness oh mighty one.

Quote:
Originally posted by Thegn:
..and it would continue to make as much sense. So you see in this regard, you are comparing apples to potatoes, magical potatoes even.

Quote:
Originally posted by SadGeezer:
....And it really is a very big assumption that DEW will ever be compact enough to hold in your hands. They really are very large devices and they require an enormous energy.

I honestly dissagree and have been very surprised to find that I'm in the minority (not that that's a bad thing. It was just a bit of a shock). There has been some news recently about how governments such as the US have plans to place laser weapons on millitary aircraft in the near future (i.e. like 5-10 years).

Quote:
Originally posted by Thegn:
Not that I don't enjoy your ideas. I do, as a matter fact, and I also like Star Trek and all their magical technology. But I just don't think you can make a case that science fictions has to always go that route. If old technology works, people continue to use it, especially in situations where money is scarce.

Thanks for that, I was beginning to feel like an antagonistic git! Though I personally don't like Star Trek (except the original) being a big Babylon 5 fan. I find that the tech in Star Trek is over the top and too full of technobabble.

I'm not sure I would agree with your last sentence though, but it's food for thought.

SadGeezers Guide to Firefly
http://www.sadgeezer.com/firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 19, 2002 7:18 PM

Jaynesville opened up some new info on this thread, at least to me. Stitch's shotgun made a strange whining sound when the pump action was worked. Nothing like a shotgun I've heard, but maybe some of you might have speculations?

Just my dos pesos,

Rex!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 19, 2002 8:29 PM

WIZARDOFAUS

'Scuse me, mates, but could I add something to this debate. This show hasn't aired where I live yet(it may never, shudder) but from what information I've gleaned from around this site it seems they do have energy weps, but they mount them on their spaceships
rather than carry handheld versions of them.

Not that I know that much about this, or anything in particular.

Does this crack you up as much as it cracks me up?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 20, 2002 2:44 PM

I don`t recall any whining sound, it was just a sawed of winchester model twelve(maybe winchester will start making them again in 500 years?), though the magazine cap looked like a mossberg 500.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 20, 2002 5:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by loonytoon:
I don`t recall any whining sound, it was just a sawed of winchester model twelve(maybe winchester will start making them again in 500 years?), though the magazine cap looked like a mossberg 500.

If you have it on tape, listen to it agian. It made the sound the first time, when Stitch was talking to the Magistrate, and I thought it might just be me. Then it made the same sound again when Stitch cocked it again in the crowd. Definitely a whining or whirring sound, like a motor or something.

Just my dos pesos,

Rex!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 20, 2002 5:59 PM

If you watch the crowd scene again, stitch never chambers another shell before pointing the gun at Mal, then you here the sound of a slide being racked. First production screwup I`ve seen so far.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 24, 2002 6:20 AM

Those making the argument of guns vs. directed energy weapons might want to research a bit of both.

The major reason for not using directed energy weapons is: why bother?

1) DEWs are silent...well, so are guns with supressors. But a weapon doesn't have to be silent all the time...sometimes you want it to be loud.

2) DEWs are more powerful....totally moot point. Only a certain amount of energy is required to kill someone at a certain range. A personal defense weapon will never contain more energy than that. At present, we have fairly wimpy handgun ammunition (people regurlarly absorb multiple shots before dying). But with only a few improvemend in weapon design, I forsee future handguns delivering rifle-like performance in terms of lethality. There's only so much performance that people can use. We're starting to see this in the computer industry where people are no longer willing to shell out for the difference between 1.7GHZ and 2GHz because the extra power doesn't mean anything in a practical sense.

3) DEWs are cheaper to make or maintain.....I'd hate to burst this bubble, but the electronics/optics industry is constantly running on the edge of frightening economic problems. Silicon chips are NOT cheap to make. Not the way you think they are. A fab line can costs BILLIONS of dollars to maintain and run. YOUR single chip is only cheap because it costs the same to make one chip as it does an entire wafer full of them. But in order to turn a profit, chip companies run fabs constantly, because they cost so much to maintain that any time they aren't running loses a chip company money. This goes for mass-produced optics as well. If, eventually, you turn out more chips that people can use, you're losing money big time. The cost per transistor is lower than ever before, this is true. But the utility per transistor is still the same. A chip fab is a very complex thing requiring immense amounts of chemicals, infrastructure, personnel, etc. Chemically, a gun needs only black powder (at a bare minimum) or nitrocellulose.

What does this all mean? It means that by the time you order all the parts needed for a DEW, and had them imported, I could have some monkeys build an entire barn of AKs. There are 11-year old gunsmiths in Afghanistan who can build you a stout AK (I love my AK!) in a day or two. On a frontier world, not only does one not have access to the IMMENSE technological base of the fab line, but imports and trade can be *rare*. Tell you what. You go out to the middle of the Sahara, get on your sat phone and call up H&K. Tell them you want 100 G-36 rifles in front of you ASAP. Best of luck!

There's also no reason a firearm would be dangerous inside the hull of a thin-skinned ship. Just choose the proper bullet. Maybe something like Glaser or RBCS (maybe in the future, fragmenting ammo will actually be worth a damn).
There's one VERY good reason for using revolvers, pumps and lever actions in Firefly. Brass and magazines. Metal is a precious commodity outside of civilization. On a sparsely populated planet, such things would be hard to come by. In spaceship, or when far from resupply, you don't throw ANYTHING away. That includes mags and brass. Semi-autos, are, shall we say a bit wasteful, especially where magazines are concerned. Sure, they're cheaply produced, but why hurt yourself? This last point is just a theory. I'd love to see other firearm aficionados weigh in on it.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 24, 2002 10:19 AM

Very well put! I do have a few disagreements though. I would think an energy weapon would still be loud, as the intense heat and energy it would release would cause an explosive expansion of the surrounding air.
And I doubt we will ever see a portable DEW as powerful as a rifle or scattergun, as the more powerful they get, the more heat they give off.

Rexray, I rewatched the episode, and I do hear the whirring, but he also didn`t rack the slide before pointing the gun at Mal, and the show had already established it was a pump-action. In real life, stitch woulda pointed his empty-chambered weapon at mal, and mal woulda kicked his stupid ass for not knowing how to use his gun, than for thumping on Simon! But it did show the gun ejecting a spent plastic shotshell, so we know it works on the same principles as now.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, October 24, 2002 7:26 PM

Maybe the gun was used electronically ignited primers! Kind of like the Remington Etronix. If you think about it though, one of the major drawbacks to electrically-ignited firearms is having to keep and maintain a battery.

But....if you kept a batter or capacitor charged through applied kinetic energy from a pump or slide that also worked the weapon's action......

Holy crap! I just invented another patent! Time to wire up my red-dot sight, etc. etc to the gas piston!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, October 25, 2002 7:53 AM

Ah, but would anyone buy your patent? I see no reason for a faster lock time on a shotgun, as its improvement in accuracy in a rifle is still miniscule(are benchrest shooters using etron-x?), but I`m the type of guy that still uses a .30-30 and would rather have a garand in combat than an M16!

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, October 25, 2002 11:46 PM

Possible Spoiler but involves our firearm discussion.

Select to view spoiler:

In tonight's episode "Out of Gas," the other crew's weapons make that whining "charging" sound again, which leads me to believe that they may look like regulat firearms, but these are not standard 21st century models.

Just my dos pesos,

Rex!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 26, 2002 2:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by RexRaygun:
Quote:
Originally posted by loonytoon:
though the magazine cap looked like a mossberg 500.

If you have it on tape, listen to it agian. Definitely a whining or whirring sound, like a motor or something.

I've run the tape and can't hear the sound. Too many weeks in the Rock Band (they let me play the lights) I guess. It looked like a Mossberg 500 with the old wood "law enforcement" front grip.

Jeff
Who notes male pattern hearing loss is in the range where women scream. Survival mechanism?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, October 26, 2002 2:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by RexRaygun:
Possible Spoiler but involves our firearm discussion.
Select to view spoiler:
In tonight's episode "Out of Gas," the other crew's weapons make that whining "charging" sound again, which leads me to believe that they may look like regulat firearms, but these are not standard 21st century models.

I still hear no whine. The Pirate Captain was carrying a factory long slide Browning P-35 (not currently in production). The gun Mal found on the suit was an old Browning Design from FN. Fired a cartridge called a 9mm Browning Long. It was one of the first hidden hammer semi-autos good for concealment. Sold mostly to Scandanavian militiaries before the 9mm Luger round became the world standard. Nice guns, obsolete ammo.

As to why the pirates backed down, "You'd have done the same to me." The worse enemy to fight is one with nothing to lose. PCP users are notoriously hard to stop because the higher mind functions are gone and they literally feel no pain.

Jeff
Who notes in the FFU (Firefly Universe) it is tough to force entry into a ship.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 27, 2002 9:29 AM

Ok, true, the increase in accuracy is minimal, but think how much easier it is to use! I think we may underestimate the amount of muscle memory we work on when developing a proper trigger pull. Not only that, but while on shotguns an rifles, the advantage is minimal, havng a negligible pull from an electronic trigger might be helpful for any weapon you plan to use one-handed, and the penchant for using long-arms one handed in Firefly is just....uncanny.

Anyway, you can always charge up all the other electronic doo-hickeys that are so popular these days. (Funny...I'm the type who just sold a bolt-rifle to finance and AR-lower)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 27, 2002 1:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ForGraetJustice:
Not only that, but while on shotguns an rifles, the advantage is minimal, havng a negligible pull from an electronic trigger might be helpful for any weapon you plan to use one-handed, and the penchant for using long-arms one handed in Firefly is just....uncanny.

Perhaps it's a requirement for the security, shooter recognition system?

Jeff
Who suspects everyone.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 27, 2002 3:28 PM

RINGNECK

Well, I think we might have overlooked a simple answer to why the guns have an old west look to them........ The people buying them want them too. I dont mean the prop department either.

Just because the rebellion is over doesnt mean all guns are forbidden. After the Civil War ended there were allowances for private weapons, we never completley banned the Indians from owning weapons on the reservations, and even in Soviet Russia those who lived in primitive areas were allowed to own certain kinds of guns.

So, if in the Firefly universe if guns arent illegal, maybe the trend in style has caused some companies to produce them with a western flair. Currently Marlin is producing lever action rifles that are modern designs, just with styling touches and features that resemble its offerings from a century ago. Right now, western looking weapons and very hightech style firearms are kind of the trend in the firearms market. The mass-market tastes of civillian buyers tends to drive gun design.

This has been adressed to, but here's my two cents on it, re; why they use projectile weapon technology 500 years in the future..... We arent told much about the weapons they are using, such as what kind of primers and propellants are used, how the ammunition works, ect. In the future they might be using materials like ceramics and plastics that we cant really concieve of now.

An interesting tidbit is that many weapons now are supposed to have a working life of several hundered years if treated well and gently used. So weapons made not to far from now might just end up being used in the far future if they are desperate for guns.

BradLaGrange

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 27, 2002 7:16 PM

That's a good point about having guns shaped with a Western flair. They certainly are popular, even today! If the people flying around on the edges of space see themselves as frontiersmen (and they are) there's no reason they wouldn't tend to romanticize their weapons. We're guilty of that today to some extent.

I forsee firearms technology developing in the areas of propellant, terminal ballistics (the ability of a bullet to damage its target) and ergonomics. Of course, guns will always look like guns, since people always look like people. One thing I don't get: Remember Our Mrs. Reynolds, when Jayne says that Vera needs an oxygen atmosphere to fire? That shouldn't be true, right? Guns fire underwater...is there any reason a firearms wouldn't work in a vacuum? MSomething to do with air pressure? It's probably some silly safety feature that's useless.....much like....

Personalized Weapons technology! The "smart gun" is a fad that should probably die before its invented, and I have a good idea why they're not used in Firefly. First of all, their benefit is extremely limited. They're useful in enclosed environs where a limited number of people have weapons, and opponents do not. Prisons, and naval vessels come to mind. Their sole purpose is to prevent someone from using your own weapon against you. If the someones you expect to face have their own weapons, its a moot point. While Serenity is an enclosed environment, the crew isn't an organized, armed force that one would attack solely for the purpose of obtaining a weapon. And, presumably, they don't often carry on board, at least not openly. Just as easy to put a lock on the armory for them. Also, personalized weapons can be an extreme liability from a reliability standpoint. If electronic components are required to activate the weapon for firing, then certain electromagnetic, or purely magnetic jamming techniques could render a weapon useless.

I can see the Alliance using them, just as I can see modern-day corrections officers using them. But I doubt guys and girls like you and me ever will.

That said, does anyone have a digitized copy of Out of Gas they'd let me download? I missed it! :-(

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 28, 2002 9:04 AM

RINGNECK

Yeah, I mean I'm sure we'll have people wanting western looking guns for hundereds of years in the future. They remake all kinds of archaic weapons now that exist soley for the purpose of their eye-pleasing nature. The Ruger Black Hawk, Single Six and Vaquero six-shooters are big sellers, and for all the world look like old west wheel guns but they are completley differently built with modern internals and modern steel.

Its a moot point to argue why the Alliance uses HK's and SA's. The prop people wanted something that futuristic and military looking at the same time. Since they needed something that could be used to fire blanks, they couldnt just mold some lazer weapon out of plastics.

I kind of wish they did do like the prop department did in the original Planet of the Apes. In that movie they took WWII era M1 carbines and put them in brand new stocks. Really altered the appearence of the gun. Maybe they should have done that with the Alliance weapons.

Also, look at what they did to WWII era Thompson Submachine Guns in Aliens. Took me forever to figure out the identity of those guns.

BradLaGrange

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, October 28, 2002 12:50 PM