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From: Cabby (I'm erasing the e-mail just in case)

For future colonists to have lower living standards than today, their
contemporary civilization has to have the same living standards as
today. Only with FTL travel, cryostasis, advance food concentrates and
forcefield barroom windows. This assumption is unreasonable and flies
in the face of the history of science. Just the few advances seen
would have a staggering number of technological spinoffs, not to
mention all the advances needed to make them even possible. Advances
in technology result in an ultimate increase in standard of living.

Exceptions can always come into play. But as such, they need to be
mentioned.

When people colonize, they don't just leave everything behind then go
poke a stick in the ground around their new home world and hope not to
starve (these people are called refugees or immigrants and can be
discussed later). Colonists bring their stuff with them. High and low
tech. Whatever they'll need to survive and live reasonably
comfortably. High on the list of stuff they'll bring are things they
can't make themselves or easily replace. Moreover, they are probably
colonizing under the auspices of a government or corporation, which
translates into more high standard of living technology to encourage
people to leave civilized worlds and make the colonies successful.

But here's the real problem. What we have seen so far in Firefly:
agrarian colonies living a 19th century subsistence existence with
virtually no modern technology. If this is the exception, rather than
the rule, it should have been pointed out as such.

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He/she is brainwashed into believing that technology must necessarily advance. That is not the case. Technology is a function of economy. If you don't have the economy, then you don't have the technology.

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On this guy's particular issue, he is ignoring that the explanation for the depressed state of economy has been given. A war was fought 6 year prior to the events in question. It was also pointed that it was a particularly bloody and destructive war.

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The only justification for the conditions seen is war, and it is only
offered in the vaguest fashion. If the original settlements were
destroyed, along with all of their high tech amenities, then the
places we see would be called refugee camps, not colonies. In fact,
switching the terms goes a lot further in justifying the extreme
technological discrepencies. If these places were penal colonies, that
might also make sense. But this doesn't seem to be the case.
If the Alliance swept through and seized all high tech gadgetry after
the war for reparations, then this would be another good reason for
Mal to hate the Alliance and would bear mentioning when he walks
through the results of it.

Any of these explanations would go a long way to adding depth to the
story.

Either there is a very important piece of the puzzle yet to be
revealed, or I was wrong: This is a Western papered over with SF
elements with no rhyme or reason.

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Hear, hear. We may have iPods and space stations, but we're the biggest economy in the world. There are people living today in other parts of the same planet that live like people did thousands of years ago. Stretch that idea over the space of... space, and you got some backwards planets.

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In space travel, every cubic inch is precious, and expensive.

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Also, an electrically powered device generally only works if you have electricty to power it. I didn't see very many Druacell plants on the planets Serenity's visited...

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Originally posted by millernate:

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In space travel, every cubic inch is precious, and expensive.

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Well, unless the colonizing authority is completely and utterly idiotic (I'm talking *badly* stupid here folks) then they would have a ship that would posses a huge variety of technological goods for the use of the colony as a whole (much like Spainish/English colonist ships had a huge hold of items for use by the colony).

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Originally posted by LivingImpaired:

Space is at a premium. To illustrate, I once read somewhere that if you wanted to send a letter to your mother in style, and you decided to send it up in the space shuttle, counting in fuel, and the very precious space in the ship, it'd cost you around $100,000.

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Originally posted by LivingImpaired:

Oh, and yes, Serenity does use fuel. In the pilot, one of the factors stressing the characters was that they had this cargo to unload, and if they couldn't sell it pronto, they wouldn't be able to afford to fuel to keep her flying.

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Originally posted by Thegn:

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Originally posted by Hobbes:
Although the Central Planets (if they have any sense) would have skyhooks. Which would be much cheaper than using a space ship to lift it out of the gravity well.

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Only if you assume the existence of "magical" materials.

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