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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
I recently say “Serenity” for the second time. I was really enjoying the first half, but the second half didn’t sit well with me this time around. I guess I didn’t notice these things the first time through because I was nicely toasted by the time I reached the second half. There were several things that puzzled me, but the big one is below. I would be interested to get responses that might point out the errors of my thinking.

I didn’t buy the fact that the entire population of Miranda, 30 million people, could die out or become Reavors, and just 12 years later absolutely no one would remember that either they or the planet Miranda had even existed. I know that the Alliance deleted all information about Miranda from the databases, but didn’t any of those people on Miranda have relatives on other planets who would remember them? This scenario would be like a country with a population of around 30 million people (say Canada or Iraq) disappearing off the face of the Earth and 12 years later no one would remember that Canada or Iraq had ever existed.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
If that was the case, why didn't the Alliance NOT wipe out all the information on Miranda in the database, and instead just state that the terraforming didn't hold? Remember that Wash couldn't find ANY information on Miranda when he did a search for it.

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Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:
Unfortunately a lot of people have already forgotten about the World Trade Center being attacked on 9/11 or think it was a conspiracy.

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Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Why are people asserting Miranda was erased from the database? River found it on the Cortex, right? Or am I missing something here?

"History is written by the winners" - deleted scenes.

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Originally posted by Riverlove:
I don't really understand why the Alliance added the PAX to the atmo processors in the first place. They didn't add it in on any other planet, so why just Miranda?

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In Train Job, Sherriff Bourne says that ALL planets have some "bug" created by terraforming. We see no evidence of that on any other planet or moon. It was a minor plot point that Joss put in that "pilot" that he had to write over a weekend, and he didn't address it again until the BDM.

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And when the PAX started to "take effect" you'd think that everyone wouldn't develop the same deadly lethargy at the same time and degree. Surely there must have been some that called out to someone off-planet for help, not realizing what was happenning to them.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Miranda was an intentionally added chemical with un expected side effects.

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Originally posted by Riverlove:

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Miranda was an intentionally added chemical with un expected side effects.

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Maybe the "good intentions" cover was just a ploy. After all, doctors and scientists are rarely in authority to make decisions, but they are typically in positions to be expolited by the military or evil-doers. Perhaps Miranda was a military "experiment" that turned out exactly as they hoped, something to be used in the future to destroy entire planetary populations with.

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Originally posted by Riverlove:
OK, the military thing is a bit far-fetched, but what else then? They wanted to "calm" the population on Miranda? Why? Where these people any different than the billions on the other worlds? Looks like they had a nice civilized world. Why not "test" the Pax on Jianying, Triumph, or Beaumond, which were much more rustic and less populated?

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

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Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:
Unfortunately a lot of people have already forgotten about the World Trade Center being attacked on 9/11 or think it was a conspiracy.

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Seriously??

I find this hard to believe. Not the conspiracy part, necessarily, but the forgetting part. What is this based on?

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Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

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Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:
Unfortunately a lot of people have already forgotten about the World Trade Center being attacked on 9/11 or think it was a conspiracy.

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Seriously??

I find this hard to believe. Not the conspiracy part, necessarily, but the forgetting part. What is this based on?

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Not necessarily forgetting, but it isn't at the front of the national conciousness. of course, the people who lost loved ones will never forget and I certainly won't but there are kids now 7 years old that didn't experience it at all and those under 18 most likely won't remember it, except as a school lesson, if it's taught at all.

I figure that eventually it'll end up like the attack on Pearl Harbor. Unless you are a history nut (like me), I don't think that the average person aged 30 or younger could tell you who attacked the US or tell you when it was within 5 years.

It's a sign that our school systems are failing. To paraphrase, those that don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

But I disagree that 9/11 specifically should be on the forefront of the national consciousness 24/7, 7 years after it happened. Within it, yes, absolutely. But on the forefront?

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Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
I don't think anyone's forgotten about the attacks on 9/11 unless they hadn't been born yet. If you want to say anything about them was forgotten, you could point to the fact that a lot of people readily believed we needed to invade Iraq as a response, even though no one in Iraq had anything to do with it. No one forgets Osama Bin Laudin's name, but a lot of people forget where he's from.
Likewise, no one who had cause to know everyone on Miranda had been wiped out would forget a planet full of people dying, but could certainly be led to believe a false cause, especially if they had no inkling of the actual one.
As to why it was wiped from the cortex, seems to me that the main focus would be on habitable worlds, that's where people would want to go, and if they came across a world that wasn't on their charts, they would know it wasn't a safe place to land, wouldn't just go exploring (especially through Reaver space, but there were probably other black rocks out there, land that hadn't been terraformed yet or places that wouldn't take the terraforming) If there were hundreds of moons, clearly not all of them were transformed into New Earths, because there weren't hundreds of Earths in the solar system. So, in terms of information, the most vital would be considered to be where it was you could actually go, and the rest would be left out, ostensibly to limit confusion. Since they didn't travel at light speed or in hyperspace or anything like that, charting a course free of a black rock would be less vital; they would see one coming and go around it. So Miranda wasn't taught about, wasn't talked about, was just a footnote of a place that "couldn't support life."

[/sig]

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Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:

Does anyone think that this would happen to Shadow? People forgetting how Shadow became uninhabitable and not thinking a thing about it?

I know it wouldn't fade away while the veteran Browncoats still lived, or would Shadow become like the Alamo and become a symbol of resistance for generations to come?

I know my response, good Browncoat that I am, but if the Alliance could make Miranda "disappear" by ignoring it could they, with the passage of time, could they do the same thing to Shadow?

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
By that logic, only our Earth should be listed in any description of our solar system.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
You analogy of Firefly astronomy and our current geography proves my point. Go on the internet, our version of the Cortex, and you can find information on every uninhabited tiny islet in any ocean of the world. Let's say you hear about, oh, Henderson Island, type it in Google and you have information on it.

Just because a planet is uninhabited certainly doesn't mean it is not going to be on the charts of the Firefly solar system.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
Also, I would like to read the threads about Reavers, but I could not find any when I scanned the list of threads. Can you provide a link? Thanks in advance.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
Go on the internet, our version of the Cortex, and you can find information on every uninhabited tiny islet in any ocean of the world.

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Originally posted by Suasor:
The "Cortex" apparently allowed for relatively easy communications between planets. That said, how do you explain the sudden disappearance of 30 million people.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
You analogy of Firefly astronomy and our current geography proves my point. Go on the internet, our version of the Cortex, and you can find information on every uninhabited tiny islet in any ocean of the world. Let's say you hear about, oh, Henderson Island, type it in Google and you have information on it.

Just because a planet is uninhabited certainly doesn't mean it is not going to be on the charts of the Firefly solar system.

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For one, who randomly googles Henderson Island? Who would really notice if they renamed it Winchester Island?

It's lots more difficult, when just the name is removed from the databases. The planet itself was not, though it was listed as black rock, but the name was probably removed. Other related files (calls for settlers) maybe have been removed or altered to make the number of settlers appear smaller. Just enough to blur the connection between the failed planet and the black rock located behind Reaver Territory. Suppress reports about Reavers, as well... I see it fading from consciousness because no one cares about that area of space. IN particular because a giant war seemed to happened straight on the heels of that incident. For all we know there was more than one failed terraforming attempt, so why should Miranda stand out?

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Originally posted by ImNotHere:

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
Go on the internet, our version of the Cortex, and you can find information on every uninhabited tiny islet in any ocean of the world.

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Yes, because you can trust Google and Wikipedia not to censor things.

Hmm.

Even so, our Internet is an ungovernable free-for-all because it snuck in under the radar of the "powers that be" - even though they built big parts of it, they didn't anticipate what it would become. I'm sure the Alliance/Blue Sun corp wouldn't have made that mistake again and could suppress any info on the cortex they didn't like, unless it got into the hands of a well equipped hacker like Mr Universe.

I live in the UK, but I've visited the US many times and I have colleagues with family there - so on 24/7, I was immediately wondering whether so-and-so has got back from the States OK, and what part of New York wossname works in.

The 'verse isn't like that: travel time between worlds is measured in days and weeks, not hours. People who leave to settle other worlds are gone for good, their families will have had their "American wakes" and bade them farewell.

Plus, the only people with the money/free time to be tourists would be the good Alliance citizens of the inner planets, who strike me as a fairly hedonistic bunch who aren't going to slum it on some outback planet when they can have two weeks in a 5-star hotel on Ariel (especially as everywhere else looks like the desert 50 miles out from LA. The Miranda colonists were likely recruited from shitholes on the outer moons. Their families probably don't take foreign holidays or subscribe to broadband cortex access...

So, its likely to be much easier to pull off the "Miranda" deception in the 'verse than on Earth-that-currently-is.

As for the other plotholes:
(1) the PAX may well have been tested on small groups for limited periods, just like they did with thalidomide and all the other drugs with side effects that didn't turn up until they had been used on a large scale...

(2) We've only met the Reavers "in battle" in full beserker mode - when the bloodlust subsides they might calm down enough to achieve some sort of organization.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
My point is that humans name the features in their landscape, no matter how remote. That's why we name remote uninhabited islands on Earth. The Firefly 'verse is one solar system. That something as large as a planet in a single inhabited solar system would not have a name on the charts is extremely implausible.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
What makes you think Miranda was a backwater like Whitefall? The city the crew lands in looks pretty substantial, like nothing portrayed on the border planets.
Also, in Serenity there is the following exchange:

Jayne: This ain't no little settlement.
Zoe: We flew over at least a dozen cities just as big.

So the evidence indicates a world with substantial infrastructure, probably with substantial trade links with other worlds, etc.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
Travel and communication are not that slow in the Firefly 'verse. First, the Firefly 'verse is just one solar system. The Cortex allows fast communication between all parts of the solar system, as evidenced by the Serenity crew always being able to contact whomever they want. Have you even seen an instance where they couldn't get ahold of the person they wanted to talk to? No!

Also, the travel times between planets are measured in days at most in the show.

So the idea that Miranda was so remote that nobody noticed a planet with dozens of cities and 30 million get wiped out, or that they forgot about such a catastrophic event in just 12 years, defies common sense.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
For the love of God, is common sense so rare among some of us? The reason that some drugs' side effects are not apparent until large numbers of people take them is because the side effects affect a small number of patients, say 1 in 10,000. So the side affects aren't obvious until many people are on the drug. In contrast, the Pax affected 100% of the population. They all either died or became Reavers. So no matter how small the number of people tested with the Pax, the affects of the Pax would be clear. Even if only 10 people were tested, they all would have died or become Reavers. Therefore, the Alliance could not have tested the Pax before adding it to the air processors. The Alliance went to the expense of terraforming a planet, building dozens of cities, and moving 30 million people to Miranda, and then added an untested chemical to the air? That is plausible to some you?!?!

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
What makes you think Miranda was a backwater like Whitefall? The city the crew lands in looks pretty substantial, like nothing portrayed on the border planets.

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Originally posted by nihonniirugaijin:
The Alliance went to the expense of terraforming a planet, building dozens of cities, and moving 30 million people to Miranda, and then added an untested chemical to the air? That is plausible to some you?!?!

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