GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Firefly class ships

POSTED BY: EST120
UPDATED: Friday, May 28, 2004 13:00
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Thursday, May 27, 2004 9:59 AM

EST120


okay, this might have been posted before, so i hope i am not wasting anyone's time. there is a big deal made by the creators of the show that firefly's are all over the place. the commander of one of the alliance cruisers makes the statement that there are 40,000 of "these little wrecks" around. how come we never saw another one?! every other ship that serenity encounters is some other design of ship. granted, mal usually does not want to run into other ships, but even in the ports or on some of the planets, there were never any other fireflies around. i would have loved to see just one or two other fireflies just sitting around or docked or flying around just for fun.


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Thursday, May 27, 2004 10:03 AM

JK


That's true, it would be cool. But the reason we haven't, I'm guessing, is that it might be a bit confusing as to which particular craft is Serenity. And, since getting new viewers hooked was hard enough given the order the episodes were shown in, even a little confusion could have put a potential fan off. I dunno, I guess it was just not worth the hassle.

Or, in the 'not-thinking-like-a-writer' part of my brain (and a small part it is), might be that the 'verse is pretty damn big and the number of operating Fireflys are pretty low (on a cosmic scale).

JK

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 10:08 AM

GUNRUNNER


Remember books statement that he once traveled in a Firefly but it didn't have the extenders, maybe not all Fireflys conform to the design of Serenity, so we may have seen one but it just didn’t look like Serenity. In the background of the used spaceship lot in OOG had a stern of a ship that looked a little like Serenity.

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 10:34 AM

BARNEYT


Plus I think they're all pretty old - I haven't re-watched the series for a while, but if I remember correctly, one of the Alliance soldiers at some point makes some disparaging comment about 'wow, are they still flying those things'...

So the ones that are still used would be out on the rim, and fair enough that's where a lot of Firefly takes place - but the rim's a big place... so maybe it's not that strange that we haven't seen any others...


just my twopennorth...


---
"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 10:46 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


No doubt, had the series gone on for more than 1 season, we'd likely seen another of Serenity's sister ships out in the 'verse. Clearly, she wasn't a 1 of a kind ship ( except in the eyes of Mal ). When the Alliance puts out an A.P.B. about a Firefly class ship in SERENITY, Mal calmly informs Badger that his ship wasn't ID'd, and that they couldn't link the stolen goods to him. Badger doesn't so much argue the specifics as he simply makes it clear to Mal that he's not taking any chances....to which Mal says...there's something else at work here..what? is anyone guess.

Anyway, I also think that it helps to impress upon us,the viewers, that Serenity is special. Seeing other Firefly class ships , extenders or not, would only have taken away from the 10th character.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 12:36 PM

GUNHAND


There may be 40,000 Firefly class out there but that just means there are hundreds of thousands of other ships, some with production runs bigger than a Firefly. Think about it like cars (yeah I know a car is different in many ways from a spaceship) but 40,000 of a certain model isn't really all that big a deal, and those are the ones still flying. There are probably 40,000 Eagle Talons still driving, that doesn't make them something you see everyday but they're out there. See what I mean?

As far as the Fireflies all looking different and Book's little speach about the extenders, he says that it's an "-03" which is the model number. So I'm thinking that the -03s have the extenders while the -02 and -01s don't. I'm sure some of them have been modified up enough that they look different in many little ways, but there's only so much you can do before the ship no longer would be a Firefly. If that makes any sense.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 12:39 PM

STATIC


HEY!!!

Maybe in the NEW series, they can find a SECOND Firefly! And then the captain of that second Firefly can join them in leading the fleet back to Earth. . .but then nobly sacrifice his ship in a one-on-one battle with TWO, count 'em, TWO Cylon basestars. . .

Oh. . .

Wait. . .

I was just. . .

No, nevermind.

==================================================
"Wash. . .we got some local color happening. A grand entrance would not go amiss."

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 12:54 PM

GUNHAND


Would never work man, Lloyd Bridges is the only man that would make me buy it. And he's gone.

I still say the Pegasus got away from that second battle and are out there kicking Cylon ass in a cool and overly dramatic fashion.

Galactica had a Council of Twelve, Pegasus had a Living Legend, now honestly which flight group would you wanna be in?

. . .

Damn skippy, call me Silverspar Gunhand.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 4:03 PM

CYBERSNARK


Galactica also had Adama. I wouldn't dismiss the Old Man quite so readily.

Swerving back on topic, I imagine the Firefly-class as being this universe's answer to Star Wars' CEC YT-1300 Light Freighter (what the Millennium Falcon started out as before Han's parents were born).

CEC (Corellian Engineering Corporation) hasn't produced any of them since the Fall of the Republic, but they're still everywhere. What they're not is instantly recognizable. Some have their cockpits in wierd places (like, say, centred ), others have differently-configured bow manifolds, some have oversized engines mounted on them, one has more guns mounted on it than can possibly be legal, another is covered with bolted-on cargo pods that make it look like Mr. Stay-Puft, yet another has had the entire hull peeled off and replaced.

Because they're so old, finding a stock version is almost impossible (save for some really crappy museums).

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 4:50 PM

GUNRUNNER


Quote:

Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Some have their cockpits in wierd places (like, say, centred ), others have differently-configured bow manifolds...



I think your are thinking of the CECs YT-2000 Class (IE The Ortana) not a YT-1300. But you are correct there are tons of 1300s out there and they don’t all look alike, for example the most noticeable add-ons to the Falcon are the sensor dish and the two quad guns.

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Thursday, May 27, 2004 5:58 PM

DARKARCHON


GEEKS! Just kidding

I read something, somewhere, in a galaxy far, far, away, that as cool as the Millenium Falcon was, it's was Han's incredible piloting skills that made all those sic maneuvers possible.

But I do agree with the 40k in the 'verse really ain't as many as it sounds; hence, not seeing them all the time.

-Dark

"Flying through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy!"

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Friday, May 28, 2004 2:52 AM

EST120


Quote:

Originally posted by DarkArchon:
GEEKS! Just kidding

I read something, somewhere, in a galaxy far, far, away, that as cool as the Millenium Falcon was, it's was Han's incredible piloting skills that made all those sic maneuvers possible.

But I do agree with the 40k in the 'verse really ain't as many as it sounds; hence, not seeing them all the time.

-Dark

"Flying through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy!"



i see your point. still, i would have loved to see another one. :) maybe with a paint job or something like that. since the show did not run long enough for my taste, perhaps the creators did not get a chance to do that. i would imagine that there are other crews on ships doing similar things that serenity does. perhaps in the movie the crew will encounter and join forces with another firefly crew or perhaps they will do battle with another firefly crew.

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Friday, May 28, 2004 5:10 AM

CYBERSNARK


Quote:

Originally posted by GunRunner:
I think your are thinking of the CECs YT-2000 Class (IE The Ortana) not a YT-1300.

No, in one of the old WEG RPG sourcebooks they showed a YT-1300 with a centre-mounted cockpit.

I also recall from somewhere that when the ships were produced stock, there were three variants: starbord-slung cockpit, centred cockpit, and port-slung cockpit. Would make sense for different flying styles; the design has a pretty massive blind spot wherever you put the bulk.

Come to that, the RPG ship I'm remembering probably had the cockpit modded; in addition to being in the centre, the cockpit was raised up so the pilot had a near-360-degree FOV.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Friday, May 28, 2004 5:29 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.


I agree w/ my fellow Browncoats that we have not seen another Firefly up to this point because the Verse is a really big place. 40,000 ships spread across all the space that the Alliance lays claim to is not that many really.

As others pointed out, older models did not have the extenders, and many may have undergone major modifications since they are older ships. They may be unrecognizable at first glance as a Firefly class.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."


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Friday, May 28, 2004 7:44 AM

TILELL


K, rank newbie comment here. . .

But from a design (graphic) POV it seems like the firefly general ship form takes at least a part of its name from the drive area, which when activated bears a strong resemblance to an actual firefly/lightening bug's rear end.

From this, I'd guess that the hind end of pretty much any firefly would look a lot alike. Maybe some different extras, but a lot alike. Running boards. 2-tone n' chrome. ;) (sorry, couldn't help it)




::assume signature that pleases or offends as appropriate here. ;)::

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Friday, May 28, 2004 1:00 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


I'm sure we'd have seen another Firefly or two if the series had gone on for any length of time. But the beginning of the first season is not a place for it. You're still introducing and developing main characters in the first season (including Serenity herself) and it's probably best not to confuse folks. Certainly not in the first dozen episodes.

Besides, do we really want Firefly to be like Trek, where they re-use the same damn ship model a bazillion times to represent a bazillion different ships? Yay for variety.

--Ant

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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