Technological merits such, realism, what can be improved etc. by Gaheris

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Technological merits such, realism, what can be improved etc.

POSTED BY: GAHERIS
UPDATED: Saturday, December 7, 2002 12:42
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Thursday, December 5, 2002 6:29 PM

I put this as an addendum to the "Why Firefly deserves to die" thread. This one will be devoted to discussing cool and not so cool technology shown on firefly and possible accuracies. Currently on table are efficient energy sources, advanced weaponry, and efficiency of planet-planet/system-system/galaxy-galaxy transport.

I hold the point that the weaponry in Firefly works fine. Archaic in weaponry, though not the most effective, is the most efficient. Anyone feel free to continue various debates and such HERE.
-Gaheris

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Thursday, December 5, 2002 6:58 PM

XERIAR

I still find the purple lightning in space amusing
(the net in 'Our Ms. Reynolds').

Lightning is purple for the same reason our sun is
yellow - when the electrons of oxygen are dropping to
lower energy states, they release photons that just
happen to look purple to our eyes.

That and the 'electricity' is arcing about as if it
were in an atmosphere...

It stands out because of the attention to detail
elsewhere.

As for weapons, guns as personal weapons makes sense,
and they will probably stay that way for a very, very
long time. Railguns are simple (in concept, anyway),
but they generate an incredible amount of heat, take
even bigger magnets (you need a few tesla to hurt
someone with it) and take even more power.

For personal weapons, that kind of thing is unweildy,
but for a ship, they become far more feasible, simply
because the energy is there, and you have the space
to stick one inside a faraday cage. Of course, it
couldn't fire often without some awesome cooling, but
it could be useful for that next encounter with your
reaver friends...

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Thursday, December 5, 2002 7:57 PM

KURUKAMI

Regarding the railgun tech, that fits with what we've seen to date. A large ship with sufficient cooling could undoubtedly use one -- as I suspect we saw when the Alliance cruiser destroyed the derelict craft in Bushwhacked.

The Alliance certainly uses them. The Reavers, being the psychotic whackjobs that they are, probably have gotten their hands on some. Anyone else non-military might have a hard time justifying possession of such a heavy weapon, particularly if the Alliance is (perhaps justifiably) cracking down on advanced weapons on spacecraft in the wake of the War.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Friday, December 6, 2002 12:38 PM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

What I find interesting is how you never see people in scifi watching tv, unless it's the news. In fact, you hardly ever see people watch movies in the future. It's one of the only things I like about Enterprise: Movie Night.

And a certain Duck Rodgers fan on B5 does not count. That was not a new show. Although they did have Rebo and Zooty on B5...

So do television shows dies out in the future? Well, at the rate Fox is advertising, that's not so far fetched...

________________

DOYLE: I don't know if she likes me. I need you to put in a few good words. Tell her what a great guy I am.
ANGEL: I barely know you.
DOYLE: Perfect, that should make it easy for you.

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Friday, December 6, 2002 7:30 PM

JONSP

Quote:
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
What I find interesting is how you never see people in scifi watching tv, unless it's the news. In fact, you hardly ever see people watch movies in the future. It's one of the only things I like about Enterprise: Movie Night.

And a certain Duck Rodgers fan on B5 does not count. That was not a new show. Although they did have Rebo and Zooty on B5...

So do television shows dies out in the future? Well, at the rate Fox is advertising, that's not so far fetched...

________________

You know, I never really thought about that before. You're right. That's interesting.

Of course trying to broadcast a TV signal all over the galaxy, with several (hundred? thousand?) light-years between planets, would just be ridiculous. Imagine the first episode of Firefly showing on the west coast in 2002 and not getting to the east coast until 6231. Major spoilers there.

But TV and movies probably don't die out in the future. People will always want ... uncomplicated entertainment. Such shows will just be for the folks back on Earth or living on the Core Planets or whatever. One of those economics things. Barring the development of some sort of cheap, faster-than-light transmission, people would have to buy their favorite shows and movies on removable media of some kind or download them from a local network where they had previously been stored. And I think we've already had more than sufficient discourse on the expense of transporting stuff through space, and luxuries are always at a premium in frontier territories like those in Firefly and B5, so ...

So I predict a future episode of Firefly in which Mal and crew smuggle a shipload of bootleg Enterprise recordings to terminally bored planet-steaders while dodging psychopathic assassin-lawyers sent by Paramount studios, which the crew later discovers has survived secretly for centuries by combining forces with Disney and Microsoft to form the totalitarian Alliance.

"Two by two, ears of blue ..."

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Saturday, December 7, 2002 6:29 AM

TWIRLIP

Quote:
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
What I find interesting is how you never see people in scifi watching tv, unless it's the news.

Well, you know, that's not entirely true. In Alien Resurrection, during some down-time, we saw the crew of the Betty watching the home shopping channel. While getting blind drunk, of course.

Why is this relevant? Because Joss wrote it, of course.

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Saturday, December 7, 2002 12:42 PM

GAHERIS

I'd just like to say something about the guns of firefly. Nobody, after viewing War Stories, can say that all the weapons are archaic. The armament displayed in that episode are about as high-tech as it gets. Vera reared her... pretty face... again and there was so many guns I am still kinda separating them out to see what they were. However, the tech level was as far as I saw, 1 six shooter, Zoe's crank rifle and the rest were modern. Any thoughts?
-Gaheris

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