FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Map of the Verse discussion

POSTED BY: JEWELSTAITEFAN
UPDATED: Monday, April 29, 2024 22:33
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:56 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


My Maps of the Verse have just been delivered today (one fold-up, one roll-up). I would like to have some discussion about how the details of this product mesh with, and reflect upon the actions we observed in the series episodes, and BDM.
I do realize that, because of the purchase requirement, much of this may seem elitist due to the fact that not all visitors have access to a Map of the Verse, and I apologize in advance for this inconvenience.

Please remember that the Map of the Verse is a commercial product, and all rights held by QMX and Joss and Mutant Enemy and anybody else are reserved. For this reason I do not plan to just list all out all the moons and worlds and suns and all else on the Map, but I hope we can still discuss specific items of interest to browncoats. If somebody involved with the Map or QMX would like to detail what types of things we should avoid discussing, that would be welcome.
I will point out that this product displays a copyright from Universal Studios and a copyright from Quantum Mechanix. Because Universal had a large hand in developing (or dictating) particulars in this product, some level of canonical influence can be inferred.


I find that there are 2 worlds which are Restricted/Quarantined. Miranda and Shadow. I had thought there was supposed to be a third. Does anybody recall what, or where it was, or see it on the Map?
I see now that Protostars are also colorcoded this way, so that might be what I heard/read.

Some may recall the start of The Train Job, at the Unification Day bar. This world, or Moon as Wash called it, was not named. When leaving atmo, we see a ringed world in the background of space. I see only 2 ringed worlds on the Map (I had thought there was supposed to be 3), Beylix (Kalidaza) and New Canaan (Blue Sun). The next stop is Ezra (Niska's Skyplex orbiting) in Georgia system. The Map seems to indicate, that at the greatest proximity in space, Ezra and Beylix would come within 32 Au of each other (or about 4 light-hours). New Canaan is much farther away. Can Serenity travel this fast?
Anyhow, it the outdoor scene of the U-Day bar, we can see 2 worlds in the background. If Beylix is one, and it's first moon Charity another, and second moon Cinote the 3rd, then this location could be the 3rd moon St. Lucius.
Does anybody agree or disagree with these deductions or assumptions? If so, please explain.
or is there a 3rd ringed world in this Verse that I am missing?

Cool links provided in this thread from GreenFaerie:
online representation of The Map of the Verse:
http://wydraz.110mb.com/firefly/index.html
The White Paper:
http://www.fireflyshipworks.com/2009/02/the-verse-in-numbers/

Updated linky for The White Paper:
http://www.qmxonline.com/The_Verse_in_Numbers.pdf

Updated linky for The White Paper, 12 June 2014 - thanks to second:
http://pics.fireflyprops.net/TVIN-2.01.pdf

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:41 PM

BLUESUNCOMPANYMAN


Firstly let me say that I also feel like there are lots of logic holes in the map. It arrived on my doorstep 2 weeks ago and I've had plenty of time to pour over it. My main beef isn't with identifying worlds it's with the 3 glaring logic holes

1. Overabundance of suns. There are 4 suns and one bright monster (white sun) and in addition other protostars (Like Murphy). I said this on the previous thread that went over this and I'll repeat it now here. THERE CANNOT BE NIGHTTIME ON THESE WORLDS. Someone elsewhere brought up that the distances of objects in the 'verse would cause some to shine more dimly and there would be night on worlds. Uh, no. I'm sorry but that is wrong. Esp now that I'm looking at it and there are Star Specteral classifications and AU distances given. As I crunch the numbers of the inverse light law...lets see if Jayne can help me with this calc: (nuthin...then nuthin...carry the nuthin). Yes indeed, the result is...THE VERSE IT LIT UP LIKE A goram X-MAS TREE. Sorry, but the Battle of Serenity Valley as shown in the pilot Ep did not actually happen at "night". I know what you thought you saw, but this map proves that it all happened in the "day".

2. Blue sun being blue. This is retarded. Blue suns are enourmous monster fusion machines that irradiate everything around them and yank orbiting objects around like sticks in tornados. The only reason there is a blue sun is because Joss said there was, which means he didn't do his astronomy homework. No suprise from the man who self describes himself as knowing "nothing about science". This is why you hire people to consult.

3. No attention is paid to the fact that the best worlds should have been placed around suns most like to Sol. The Alliance worlds orbit White sun, which would pump out lots of UV and would promote hardscrabble worlds wheras Georgia and Kaldasia are yellow and suit plantlife well. The result? The Alliance paradise worlds illogically orbit a UV killer and the hard-life rim worlds orbit awsome yellow suns. Backwards? Seems so to me, due to a poorly thought out idea that the Alliance had to be in the "center". This may seem strange to 2-dimentional thinkers, but space is totally relative.

There are also gravitional calculations to consider. One could actually calculate whether or not these orbits could be stable because AU distances between objects are given with object mass sizes but at this point I'm not going to bother. The map needs to be started over with an Astronomer at the helm.

Gr arg.

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009 8:59 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


I am sorry if my post seemed to intend to criticize this shiny new product, for I did not intend this. I was hoping to explore ways to consolidate the various sources of data, and moderate conflicts of data.

I also wholly goofed on the math in my first post, and will return to it for recalculation.

Regarding night, the distances from suns may well produce "lack of light" just as we have reflective illumination from our satellite, aka moonlight. Becoming accustomed to the different light levels, generations of eyes would sense some lack of light as "dark" or night, just as today our "night vision" adjusts even when there is no moon light, merely distant star light, which gets multiplied in reflective surfaces like glass, lakes, etc. We still agree that even on the most bright full moon, the lack of direct radiation from our nearest sun source is our definition of "night" or "dark".
Additionally, many of the Blue Sun, Kalidasa, Georgia and Red Sun systems will have night except for the periods when Blue or Kalidasa is opposite the White Sun. Hera is clearly one of these places.
I also recall Inara's description of Shinon as "an ocean of light" IIRC, and your claim that such a Core world would be constantly lit by multiple sources might explain this description by her. I had originally thought she was referring to world-sourced illumination, but multiple-suns could have been what she meant.

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009 10:00 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Regardin Serenity's speed, it seems we can learn much from Safe, as applied to the Map of the Verse. Jiangyin is the first rock of the same system Greenleaf is in. With Book bleeding to death, one would think they would use top speed of Serenity, and they said it would take 10 hours to get from Jiangyin to Greenleaf. If I am measuring correctly, it would be a minimum of 6 Au distance, and the maximum would be similar, perhaps the equivalent of 7 Au if the gravity drag of the system center works against them while trying to get to the other side of the orbital loop.
This would mean that Serenity's top speed would be about 0.6-0.7 Au per hour.

Assuming this to be the case, having Mal state that it's only a couple hours from Haven to Training House would mean they are only 1-2 Au apart, meaning the Training House was on Deadwood, or New Omaha, or one of the 5 moons of Dragon's Egg.

In Trash, the episode covers 72 hours. They start on an unnamed empty rock, and are on Bellerophon by 0600. If the empty rock was in the Core, there are only 2 candidates: Rubicon, and Hades (first moon of Persephone.). Hades would be a minimum of 10 Au from Bellerophon, and it would be a minimum of 30 Au to the nearest Red Sun or Georgia system empty rock (meaning about 50 hours away). Does this allow enough time in the 72 hours for the empty rock to be in Red Sun or Georgia system, or was the empty rock in the core? If in the Core, would there be a "night" on that rock?

An opposing mention of Serenity speed was in the BDM script, when River said that from Miranda to Mr. Universe was 367,442 miles and would take under 4 hours at maximum burn. With 1Au equal to 93 million miles, and 1/100th Au about equal to 930,000 miles, it would be about 1/1000th Au per hour velocity. This is not the same as 0.6-0.7 Au per hour implied by the Map in conjunction with Safe. Of course, this River line was not used in the film, so perhaps it was not considered accurate enough.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009 12:28 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


I also notice that one world is named Barrowclough. I recall a Family named Barraclough in the Serrano/Suiza series by Elizabeth Moon. Does this mean there are EM fans at QMX/Mutant Enemy, or is there a common source seperate from these?

Also noticed 2 neighboring moons named Conrad and Bob. Whether due to WildWildWest or BaaBaaBlackSheep, not sure.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009 9:45 AM

MOONDOG


Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
I also notice that one world is named Barrowclough. I recall a Family named Barraclough in the serrano/Suiza series by Elizabeth Moon. Does this mean there are EM fans at QMX/Mutant Enemy, or is there a common source seperate from these?

Also noticed 2 neighboring moons named Conrad and Bob. Whether due to WildWildWest or BaaBaaBlackSheep, not sure.


The name "Bob" may be a referance to "Titan AE" where the new Earth is (humorously)named "Bob".

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Thursday, January 15, 2009 11:59 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
Firstly let me say that I also feel like there are lots of logic holes in the map. It arrived on my doorstep 2 weeks ago and I've had plenty of time to pour over it. My main beef isn't with identifying worlds it's with the 3 glaring logic holes

1. Overabundance of suns. There are 4 suns and one bright monster (white sun) and in addition other protostars (Like Murphy). I said this on the previous thread that went over this and I'll repeat it now here. THERE CANNOT BE NIGHTTIME ON THESE WORLDS. Someone elsewhere brought up that the distances of objects in the 'verse would cause some to shine more dimly and there would be night on worlds. Uh, no. I'm sorry but that is wrong. Esp now that I'm looking at it and there are Star Specteral classifications and AU distances given. As I crunch the numbers of the inverse light law...lets see if Jayne can help me with this calc: (nuthin...then nuthin...carry the nuthin). Yes indeed, the result is...THE VERSE IT LIT UP LIKE A goram X-MAS TREE. Sorry, but the Battle of Serenity Valley as shown in the pilot Ep did not actually happen at "night". I know what you thought you saw, but this map proves that it all happened in the "day".


3. No attention is paid to the fact that the best worlds should have been placed around suns most like to Sol. The Alliance worlds orbit White sun, which would pump out lots of UV and would promote hardscrabble worlds wheras Georgia and Kaldasia are yellow and suit plantlife well. The result? The Alliance paradise worlds illogically orbit a UV killer and the hard-life rim worlds orbit awsome yellow suns. Backwards? Seems so to me, due to a poorly thought out idea that the Alliance had to be in the "center".



Gr arg.


Well, starting with number 3, our sun is a white sun, a red dwarf. It only looks yellow to us within our atmo. So maybe they wanted the Alliance to be centered by a White Sun as well.


Now to number 1. I am not sure figures regarding luminosity support your assertion.

First one can point out the brightness of our own moonlight - many times it is about 1/450,000th of the sun's brightness, but at max full moonlight brightness it can be 1/100,000th of the sun.

Now, the worlds in the core will get illumination primarily from the White Sun, and secondly from one of the Red Sun or Georgia star, not at the same time but sometimes switching from one to the other during the "night" of the White Sun. Even so, they will each have some small time when none of these 3 are illuminating them during their "night", and would only be lit by Kalidasa star or Blue Sun.
Worlds in the Red Sun and Georgia system would never light each other's system, and other than when directly between White Sun and their own Sun, they would have a "night" where neither of these 2 lit a portion of the world, and would only be lit from either Kalidasa or Blue Sun when in that arc.
Worlds in Kalidasa and Blue Sun would clearly have night most of the "days" cycles, except when between their own sun and another sun.

The following use some measurments from the 2 legends/diagrams. The large one has a scale of 1 inch equals 5.88Au, and the small planary version in the top right corner uses a scale of 51mm equals 100Au.

Around the White Sun, the palentary orbit which most closely gets the same brightness as our sun is Bernadette in the 1st orbit (measuring on the inch legend) or Londinium in the 2nd orbital ring (measuring on the mm legend).
These worlds would get from the Georgia sun (when closest) about 1/2763 of what Earth gets from our sun (40 times our brightest moonlight). From the Red Sun, when closest, 1/4406 of Earth's (23 times our brightest moonlight). From Kalidasa when nearest, 1/5108 (20 times our brightest moonlight). From Blue Sun when nearest, 1/4873 (21 times our brightest moonlight)

Around the Georgia sun, the planetary orbit which most closely gets the same brightness as Earth gets from our sun is Exra in the 1st orbital ring.
The brightness this world would get from White Sun when nearest is 1/58 of what Earth gets from our sun.

Around the Red Sun, the planetary orbit which most closely gets the same brightness as Earth is Jaingyin in the first orbital ring.
The brightness this world would get from White Sun when nearest is also 1/58 of what Earth gets from our Sun. These would occur during one period of the orbital "year" when the world is directly between their own sun and White Sun, similar to when Alaska and the North and South Poles have periods when there is no "night" for about a month.

Around Kalidasa, the orbit with the nearest brightness as our Earth is Shoje Downs in the first orbital ring.
The brightness this world would get from White Sun would be 1/183 of what Earth gets from our sun, or about 550 times what our brightest Moonlight is here on Earth.

Around Blue Sun, the orbit with the closest brightness to our Earth is Meridian in the first orbital ring using the inch gauge, or New Canaan in the 2nd orbital ring using the mm gauge.
The brightness this world would get from the white Sun would be 1/405 of what Earth gets from our sun, or about 250 times our brightest Moonlight.

What is not accounted for in numerical calculations, may be accounted for in "night vision" adjustments, and relativity of darkness. Many folks from the cities do not actually know how DARK dark can indeed be, but they still consider their city light to be dark because the sky is dark - even when our brightest moonlight is present, the sky is still dark.

Not sure I can see where "no dark will be present" in any daily cycle, except for specific periods of the yearly orbit. perhaps the best bet for these continuously lit worlds are in the Core, but when have we seen dark in the Core but on Persephone at the outer edge of the Core? I'd think Ariel was night, and that's 21Au from White Sun and may not be lit by another for a period.

When Hera is on the side of Murphy away from White Sun and Georgia, and Kalidasa and Blue Sun are not in their sector, there would quite clearly be night, and for as much time as there would be day in that cycle.

Please correct me if my calculations are incorrect. I did search numerous references to find data, and cannot verify them independantly all at once.

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Friday, January 16, 2009 7:03 AM

BLUESUNCOMPANYMAN


Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:

Well, starting with number 3, our sun is a white sun, a red dwarf. It only looks yellow to us within our atmo. So maybe they wanted the Alliance to be centered by a White Sun as well.


I will respond to one...only one...of the many things you wrote above, because I have no time today to sit down and draw forth the wagonload of knowledge I can bring to bear on this subject. Let me focus on the first thing you wrote. Please note above what you said and let me say that:

Our sun is not a white sun. Neither is it a red dwarf. I do not know why you placed those two things together. This is a red dwarf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_dwarf

This is our sun, which for the purposes of this post I shall call Sol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

White sun is larger and brighter than our sun. It lies on a higher point along what astronomers call the "main sequence" of stars. Refer here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence

Sol is classed as a G2 star. Star color classifications go along this scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classification You are correct that it's color is white-ish, but as a G star it falls in the yellow band.
Do you see that band of changing colors? Sol is right in the middle of the yellow area. Red dwarfs are way down to the right and White Sun is up higher on the scale to the left, halfway twixt the yellow stars and the Blue Supergiants.

Dimmest and reddest are M class. Then going from red to orange to yellow to white to blue the scale procedes as follows:

M, K, G, F, A, B, O.

White sun is an A star as per the map. Sol is a G star. A stars pump out lots more UV radiation and colonies adjacent to such bodies would require radiation Shielding. Plantlife would find it hard to endure the punishing mutations brought on by constant bombardments of particles.
I'm not saying that colonies could not exist next to such a star, but where is the logic of placing the Paradise worlds there? Why not Georgia? Answer: map makers wanted the Alliance in the "center". There are no times in the show when characters are present on a planet with a star shining with the whitewashed intensity of What the A0 White Sun would produce except once: Miranda. Recall how white-ed out things looked on Miranda? THAT is a white sun. And Miranda is placed noplace near to the White star. It would even make good sense that Reavers hang out there, with the punishing effects of high radiation. But alas, logic does not apply to the verse.

I can type on and on about this subject but I grow weary of it. The honest truth is that I very much wanted a good 'verse map. My love of Firefly runs deep and the emotions I feel are akin to my anger at crap like Phantom Menance or Brian Herberts pathetic attempts to write Dune books like his Brilliant father. I want to believe in Firefly and this map needs to be re-worked.

*Edit* After reviewing my post it reads to me as though I'm angry and trying to start a fight. This is not true. I would say I feel "intense" about this subject, owning to my desire that anything Firefly be perfect. I always said to my friends that the two things about this genra that would upset me would be poor research on the two subjects I understand well. 1. Astronomy and 2. Military Structure. The first stands here displayed. I expect the second will come when someone attempts to provide a canon narative about the Unification War. Again JSF, I'm not trying to create a fight.

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Friday, January 16, 2009 10:45 AM

SASDIE


Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
I always said to my friends that the two things about this genra that would upset me would be poor research on the two subects I understand well. 1. Astromony and 2. Military Structure. The first stands here displayed. I expect the second will come when someone attempts to provide a canon narative about the Unification War.


I totally agree with you. They really should do some research before putting things down on paper.. Firefly is the best sci-fi ever made, and, despite being a sci-fi, it was so..very..believable. And now we get this unrealistic map, it's a shame, really. It's just plain stupid, and should be re-worked by someone, who knows a bit about this stuff (no offense meant, but when making up solar systems, the author should at least know what a white star is). I hope they won't make the same mistake, if they ever will make book about the war.
That being said, I still love Firefly, and will keep this gorram thing on my wall.

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Friday, January 16, 2009 3:47 PM

BRIGLAD


While I don't have the map (Yet) We must keep in mind that Joss doesn't know astronomy. He gave us a verse that we all love and due to demand, QMX tried to "reverse engineer" a 'verse that fits somewhere between Joss' visuals and real science.

Despite the shortcomings already pointed out, it sounds like they made a decent compromise. I plan to order my own copy fairly soon.

Brian

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Sunday, January 18, 2009 1:28 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


bscm, I was hasty and incorrectly stated our Sol was a RED Dwarf, when I meant to state Yellow Dwarf. It is still a white sun, producing white light (of our visible spectrum). Not referring to color classifications of suns, but the color output - so maybe "White Sun" was what somebody wanted since ours outputs white.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009 5:47 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


When I ordered my Map of the Verse, I asked QMX if they planned to produce a companion product to the Map, explaining things not on the Map but pertinent to it and FF. They indicated interest in such a product.

This thread could also begin to address suggestions of thing we would like to see in a companion product.

Like maybe travel times. Max speed of Serenity. Location of homeplanets for Kaylee, Wash, Jayne. Which worlds were shown in Firefly but not named? Some of these would likely require input from Joss, but rumor has it he likes this verse and enjoys dabbling in it still.

Other items: orbit cycle/duration of the various worlds and suns on the Map. What were the positions and distances between worlds during travel in the episodes?

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Sunday, January 18, 2009 6:09 AM

STILLSON


Just a note:

Max speed doesn't mean so much in space. What matters is acceleration (you accelerate at full burn until 1/2 way there then reverse power for the last 1/2). Or, you use 1/2 your fuel, coast, then use the other half to slow down.

I saw somewhere that a firefly accelerates at a max 4.2g. I'm not sure what that translates to in useful numbers (134 ft/s^2).

But, the truth is the 'verse isn't hard sci-fi. It's about people, and the details have been kinda fudged.

I know computer architecture pretty well. I don't get to upset about the details of the computers. Sure the Astronomy is off. So are a lot of things. But the people ring true. That's why we all love it.




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Sunday, January 18, 2009 8:21 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


hey, thanks for reminding me about the acceleration/deccelration. I keep thinking about the atmo travel rules.
but there would be a max speed, tho - can't really exceed the speed of light, can we?

Anyhow, was rereading posts and saw that the whole 5-star system thing was handed down (like delcared/demanded/decreed) by Universal, so QMX didn't have much choice, just made do with what they were given.

Also supposed to be some white paper coming soon to explain much of this Map.

Other handy linkies:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=17&t=34398

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=35693

http://www.fireflyfans.net/sunroomitem.asp?i=21340&nid=30023


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Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:29 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:


In Trash, the episode covers 72 hours. They start on an unnamed empty rock, and are on Bellerophon by 0600. If the empty rock was in the Core, there are only 2 candidates: Rubicon, and Hades (first moon of Persephone.). Hades would be a minimum of 10 Au from Bellerophon, and it would be a minimum of 30 Au to the nearest Red Sun or Georgia system empty rock (meaning about 50 hours away). Does this allow enough time in the 72 hours for the empty rock to be in Red Sun or Georgia system, or was the empty rock in the core? If in the Core, would there be a "night" on that rock?



I had misunderstood something here. On the Map of the Verse, bodies are listed as Suns, Protostars, Gas Giants, Inhabited/Terraformed, Uninhabited/Unterraformed, ...etc.
This would mean the "empty rock" in Trash would not be one of the Unihatibed/Unterrafromed, because the epmty rock is clearly terraformed. In may be just slang for a sparsely inhabited body, or it might be "empty" although certainly not "unterraformed". So my assumption regarding it being either Rubicon or Hades is likely incorrect.

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Friday, January 23, 2009 12:53 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Edit: 25 days after this post, a better reasoned chart is posted to replace this one.
And after the White Paper was posted around the end of Feb, a March post updated with better data is added.

I'll try a little starting over on some calculations.
Apparently there are 4 or 5 different scales or measurement used on this product, and many do not seem to match or correlate.

For the purpose of moving forward, let's start by using the largest map and it's stated scale of one inch equals approx 5.88Au.
In the Red Sun system, the orbit of Jiangyin has a radius of about 13/32 inch, and the orbit of Greenleaf has a radius of about 1 11/16 inch.
That gives a distance of 41/32 inch when they are nearest, and about 67/32 when farthest from each other. This coverts to about 7.53Au when near and 12.31Au when far. We can assume in Safe that they will use max speed/acceleration when trying to get dying Book to Med Facilities, and this is supposed to be 10 hours. So 5 hours of acceleration,. and 5 hours of decceleration.
The min accel rate would be 0.30 Au/hour sq, and the fastest would be about 0.492 Au/hour sq.

A rudimentary time/distance table would be like this:
Time Min & Max distance/speed
1 hour. 0.15 @0.30 0.246 @0.492
2 hours. 0.60 @0.60 0.984 @0.984
3 hours. 1.35 @0.90 2.214 @1.476
4 hours. 2.40 @1.20 3.936 @1.968
5 hours. 3.75 @1.50 6.150 @2.460
6 hours. 5.40 @1.80 8.856 @2.952
7 hours. 7.35 @2.10 12.054 @3.444
8 hours. 9.60 @2.40 15.744 @3.936
9 hours. 12.15 @2.70 19.926 @4.428
10 hours. 15.00 @3.00 24.600 @4.920

15 hours. 33.75 @4.50 55.350 @7.380
20 hours. 60.00 @6.00 98.400 @9.840
25 hours. 93.75 @7.50 153.75 @12.300
26 hours. 101.4 @7.80 166.296 @12.792

So it's about 20-26 hours to accelerate until traveled 100Au, then the same to deccelerate back to zero.

please post correction if I have erred.

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Sunday, February 1, 2009 11:45 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


For comparative reference, our Solar syatem:
0.39Au Mercury, no moon.
0.72Au Venus, no moon.
1.00Au Earth, moon Luna.
1.52Au Mars, moons Phobus and Deimos.
5.20Au Jupiter, 63 moons. Largest 4: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto.
9.58Au Saturn, 60 moons. Largest: Titan.
19.23Au Uranus, 27 moons. Largest 5: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon.
30.1Au Neptune, 13 moons. Largest: Triton.

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009 3:18 AM

LEMMING


"I totally agree with you. They really should do some research before putting things down on paper.. Firefly is the best sci-fi ever made, and, despite being a sci-fi, it was so..very..believable. And now we get this unrealistic map, it's a shame, really. It's just plain stupid, and should be re-worked by someone, who knows a bit about this stuff (no offense meant, but when making up solar systems, the author should at least know what a white star is). I hope they won't make the same mistake, if they ever will make book about the war.
That being said, I still love Firefly, and will keep this gorram thing on my wall."


OK, I'm going to take a bit of issue with this.

"really should do some research.."

What, you think this was scribbled up on the back of a cigarette packet in 5 minutes?

You think nobody with an understanding of Astronomy was consulted? (They were. I'll get to why stuff went like it did)

2 years.

I'll repeat that.

2 years QMX worked on this.

Now I was only involved in the last 6 months or so, but I do know just how much effort was put into this. And yes, the logic holes are there. You'll just have to live with them because they are part and parcel of Joss Whedon's creation (all QMX did was give it a real pretty looking framework and make it a real thing to get your mitts on)

There are several things to note.

1. Joss Whedon avoids complicated real world science largely. This was all about telling a story. Fitting the map to the story was considered more important that trying to retcon the whole of Firefly canon. Firefly is not and never will be (despite a certain solidity to it), hard science fiction. (But it is of course Good science Fiction, no argument there, just emphasis on the "fiction")
[edit: see Stillson's comment]

2. A Real world physical model was tried for the map. It didn't work. No matter how hard a system based on that of Sirius (trinary system) was tried to fit what we knew of the Verse, it would always have huge logic and practical gaps. (More than the current map in fact. I don't dispute the logic holes at all, I just want to put them in context)

3. Universal said 5 suns, so it was 5 suns. And the Joss approved art for Serenity was based on this (the map in the classroom scene is essentially just the core, but Geoff Mandell had sketched out a larger scale version that wasn't used. This was the basis for the overall layout, what we did was flesh it out and try to make it fit Firefly canon as much as possible.)
[edit: Actually Jewelstaitefan already mentioned this fact in brief]

4. It's not perfect (obvously) but it is a (commercial) product produced with a lot of care and love and attention to detail. This is the best map that QMX could produce given the time, cost, direction from the licence holder of the property (Universal) and detailed input from the artist, folks who worked on the film, Browncoats (just fans, not paid, just asked to give their input over the length of the project, including folk who have thought about this *a lot*, some of whom have a working knowledge of astronomy), that was possible.

We fanwanked our socks off to make this :-)

5. It looks bloody gorgeous. Enjoy it for what it is.

6. Joss can turn around anytime he likes and say "No no no, it's like *this*!" And that will be cool :-)

7. Discussing it is fun anyway :-)

Nick
(The Signal: www.serenityfirefly.com)

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009 3:24 AM

BRIGLAD


... What Nick said.

Brian

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Tuesday, February 3, 2009 7:41 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


I have been busy lately, not posting in this thread like I planned.
Viewed the bluray Serenity database on worlds, and it seems to be vastly different from this map, just regurgitating stuff from the show.

Quote:
Originally posted by Lemming:
"
That being said, I still love Firefly, and will keep this gorram thing on my wall."


2 years QMX worked on this.

1. This was all about telling a story.

3. Universal said 5 suns, so it was 5 suns.
This was the basis for the overall layout, what we did was flesh it out and try to make it fit Firefly canon as much as possible.)
[edit: Actually Jewelstaitefan already mentioned this fact in brief]

4. It's not perfect (obvously) but it is a (commercial) product produced with a lot of care and love and attention to detail.

We fanwanked our socks off to make this :-)

5. It looks bloody gorgeous. Enjoy it for what it is.

6. Joss can turn around anytime he likes and say "No no no, it's like *this*!" And that will be cool :-)

7. Discussing it is fun anyway :-)

Nick


Thanks for your reply. I was hoping for some more from a participaqnt such as you. Can you help clarify which of the perceived discrepancies are actually not, which were considered and accepted as not-so-important, and which were not considered?
Do you know where or when the white paper is available, for purchase or perusal?
Can you explain the apparent 2 different meassuring meathods for the 2 scales of map? One seems to convert to one set of Au measurements, the other about 2-3 times as many Au, and the distances are not of uniform disparity from one system to another. Is there a reason for this?
Was the ringed world in background of The Train Job teaser (while leaving atmo) supposed to be Baylix, or New Canaan, or another world not shown as ringed on The Map of the Verse?

Thanks in advance for your further help. We do indeed want to maximize our enjoyment of this shiny product.

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Wednesday, February 4, 2009 5:07 AM

LEMMING


Jewlstaitefan wrote:
>"Thanks for your reply. I was hoping for some more from a participaqnt such as you. Can you help clarify which of the perceived discrepancies are actually not, which were considered and accepted as not-so-important, and which were not considered?

No. :-) Sorry, I have no idea without going back through 2 years of emails, comparing all the info with the Serenity RPG, all the epsisodes and the BDM, the white paper, everything posted here... etc 'Aint happening!

>Do you know where or when the white paper is available, for purchase or perusal?

Again, no, not yet. The paper as such is more or less done (this I can tell you is a fan produced item by Chris Boudrier (sp?), supported by QMX) but I have not heard when it will be available. It should be a free PDF in it's final form that was planned to be available from the QMX website. I imagine there may be some licencing issues holding this up, but as I said, I have not heard. An NDA and common courtesy prevents me from making my copy available.

>Can you explain the apparent 2 different meassuring meathods for the 2 scales of map?

No.

>One seems to convert to one set of Au measurements, the other about 2-3 times as many Au, and the distances are not of uniform disparity from one system to another. Is there a reason for this?

No idea.

>Was the ringed world in background of The Train Job teaser (while leaving atmo) supposed to be Baylix, or New Canaan, or another world not shown as ringed on The Map of the Verse?

Wibble.

>Thanks in advance for your further help. We do indeed want to maximize our enjoyment of this shiny product.

Can't we just like it? :-)

Nick
(The Signal: www.serenityfirefly.com)

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Wednesday, February 4, 2009 7:57 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:
Originally posted by Lemming:
Jewlstaitefan wrote:

>Do you know where or when the white paper is available, for purchase or perusal?

Again, no, not yet. The paper as such is more or less done (this I can tell you is a fan produced item by Chris Boudrier (sp?), supported by QMX) but I have not heard when it will be available. It should be a free PDF in it's final form that was planned to be available from the QMX website. I imagine there may be some licencing issues holding this up, but as I said, I have not heard. An NDA and common courtesy prevents me from making my copy available.

Thanks for letting us know it is not yet available. Hopefully you will be able to post a linky when it becomes available.
Quote:

>Was the ringed world in background of The Train Job teaser (while leaving atmo) supposed to be Baylix, or New Canaan, or another world not shown as ringed on The Map of the Verse?

Wibble.


???? Wibble??

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Thursday, February 5, 2009 12:26 AM

LEMMING


Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Quote:
Originally posted by Lemming:
Jewlstaitefan wrote:

>Do you know where or when the white paper is available, for purchase or perusal?

Again, no, not yet. The paper as such is more or less done (this I can tell you is a fan produced item by Chris Boudrier (sp?), supported by QMX) but I have not heard when it will be available. It should be a free PDF in it's final form that was planned to be available from the QMX website. I imagine there may be some licencing issues holding this up, but as I said, I have not heard. An NDA and common courtesy prevents me from making my copy available.

Thanks for letting us know it is not yet available. Hopefully you will be able to post a linky when it becomes available.
Quote:

>Was the ringed world in background of The Train Job teaser (while leaving atmo) supposed to be Baylix, or New Canaan, or another world not shown as ringed on The Map of the Verse?

Wibble.


???? Wibble??


Wibble.

As in "omigodthatstoomuchformybraintocopewithwibblewibblewibble...."

:-)

The reference is from Blackadder Goes Forth, where the accepted method of being invaliaded out of the army by reasons of insanity, as a ruse to avoid certain death on the western front, was to put your underpants on your head, stick 2 pencils up your nose and to go "Wibble" in response to any inquiry.

Well, you asked :-)

Nick

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Thursday, February 5, 2009 4:46 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
hey, thanks for reminding me about the acceleration/deccelration. I keep thinking about the atmo travel rules.
but there would be a max speed, tho - can't really exceed the speed of light, can we?

No, but you can keep accelerating forever, getting ever closer to c without ever reaching it. The speed of light in a vaccuum is a 'speed limit' in so much as you can never reach or exceed it, but fuel and propellant willing you can actually accelerate indefinately, so you'll never reach a maximum speed.

Also remember that star systems are dynamic, traveling between planet A and Planet B might take three days today, but next month it could be three weeks.


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Thursday, February 5, 2009 7:00 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Obviously there are differences in distances during the orbital cycles. But when 2 systems are never closer than 100Au to each other, you can't just suddenly say you went from one to the other in the time it takes to travel 5Au. Some distances have a very narrow range of value, like Red Sun and Georgia System, and 2 worlds in the same system, particularly when one is the first orbit around the sun (like Ezra or Jiangyin). Others have widely varying distance values, such as Kalidasa and Blue Sun, which can be as far apart as can be in this verse, but several times per orbit come closer to each other than anything else they proximate (like in BDM).

Quote:
Originally posted by Lemming:
Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Quote:
Originally posted by Lemming:


Quote:

>Was the ringed world...

Wibble.


???? Wibble??


Wibble.

As in "omigodthatstoomuchformybraintocopewithwibblewibblewibble...."

Well, you asked :-)

Nick

Yes I did. Could not find a world listed on Map ofnthe Verse named Wibble, not even without rings.
I don't understand the overload problem, tho.

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Thursday, February 5, 2009 10:48 PM

LEMMING


Don't get me wrong, I appreciate deep geeking as much as the next fan (hence involvement at the latter stages of the Map project) it's just that trying to rationalise every scene where a pretty picture bacground suggested some astronomical fact (which at that point would in no way have been worked out in *anyones* mind or on paper) is a bit much for the time of day you posted :-)

So, "wibble" :-)

Most fantasy universes evolve. Writers rarely start at basic fundamentals of phsics and work up...I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's lovely quote which was something like "To bake an apple pie, first, create The Universe..." It doesn't work like that. Writers who do, are rarely good writers. Story first IMO.

So to expect a background artist, working on a hastily written second pilot to even be thinking about a cosmology that didn't even exist yet, in someone elses mind....is stretching it a bit far even for me :-)

Fanwank it all you like (thats the fun bit after all, no argument there) but there's almost no way anyone could give a definitive answer that fitted both what was seen on screen in 2002 and with a licenced product years later that is an admitted compromise on a number of fronts and is based around something from a seperate (related, but seperate) project anyway.

Nick

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Friday, February 6, 2009 12:43 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


OH.
I would have thought that the references in the shows and scripts would have been the basis for the locations and applied names of the different worlds.

I did not realize this product was not intended to reflect what was in the show & film.

The discussion can still find and reveal discrepancies, we'll just have gobs more of them.

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Friday, February 6, 2009 5:37 AM

LEMMING


Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
OH.
I would have thought that the references in the shows and scripts would have been the basis for the locations and applied names of the different worlds.

I did not realize this product was not intended to reflect what was in the show & film.

The discussion can still find and reveal discrepancies, we'll just have gobs more of them.


Well of course it was intended to reflect what was in the show and the film. Wouldn't have been much point otherwise! :-)

Indeed a lot of world positions were rearranged after the initial plans, precisely in order to take account of this. My point is, that it is impossible to take into account *every* single visual or script reference and make it work in a consistent construct, because there *was* no consistent construct at the point of writing/filming of Firefly. It looked good, so they used it, never mind that it might be contradicetd later in the series or in the (at the time) unmade film. (Which is why I balked at trying to go back and unravel the unravelable for that particular example)

In this case, Serenity canon trumps Firefly canon (although that was accomodated as much as possible and in the vast majority of cases, I believe that it is a reasonable fit) because a)it was more thought out and b) Universal is the one granting the *Serenity* tie in license, not a Firefly tie in license (which would have been Fox)

The Map is an example of "as close as we can get it at the moment" I'm not disputing for a minute that there are things that could have been improved or that given double the budget and more time would have made it even better, but you could spend your whole life trying to fit everything into an internally consistent and logical framework. (Which wasn't there in the first place)

The Verse does of course have a believability and solidity to it that is very appealing, but the truth of it is that this is more to do with the characters and stories. The larger physical appearance of the place is mostly window dressing. The Map is an attempt to get around that inconvenient fact, but there will always be inconsistencies no matter what you do.

Understand that I'm not trying to discourage pulling apart the framework and kicking it to see where the holes are. Fans have those sort of brains and it's part of the fun :-) But there comes a point where I at least have to just shrug my shoulders about a particular point and let it go. It doesn't spoil my enjoyment of a beautiful thing as I've already suspended my disbelief and bought into the whole idea.

Nick
(The Signal: www.serenityfirefly.com)

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Thursday, February 12, 2009 11:16 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Ok, after some delays (by me), onward to things on the Map.

Regarding the 2 measuring systems for the 2 versions of maps.
In the upper right, 51mm=100Au, so each 1mm is about 2Au.
In the rest of the Map, the scale is stated to be 1inch = approx 5.88Au.

Comparing the same orbital size from one scale to the other reveals discrepancies.
For example, the small version shows Lux having an orbital radius of about 15.3mm, or 30.6Au and on the larger version Lux measures an orbital radius of 6 17/32, or 38.4Au. This is a difference with a factor of 1.24 (larger version represents more Au for this orbit than the small version).
Likewise, in Kalidasa System, Heaven shows about 1.7mm radius on the small version, for about 3.4Au, and on the large version is shown with 1 inch radius for about 5.88Au. This is a difference with a factor of 1.73.

For the Core, the factor of difference seems to be about 1.25.

For the Georgia System, the factor of difference seems to be about 1.6.

For the Red Sun, the factor seems to be vary, from about 1.5-1.7 near the Sun to about 1.25 at Jubilee and 1.1 for Himinbjorg and Heinlein Protostars.

For the Kalidasa System, the factor seems to vary from about 1.5-1.9 for the mid and inner worlds to about 1.2 for the outer worlds.

For the Blue Sun, the factor seems to range from about 1.0 to about 0.7 (meaning the large map shows less Au orbital radius than the small map).

For the orbital radius of Georgia and Red Sun from White Sun, the 11 1/2 inches equates to about 68Au, which is the defined distance, and is the same as the smaller map (34mm)

What might be the cause of these discrepancies? I don't know. Some of the issue may be the use of perspective in the large map. The Blue Sun is shown in far perspective, so maybe that is why it has the only factor less than 1. But then the Kalidasa is shown in foreground, so it's factor should then be much greater than the other factors, but it's about the same distortion as the Core orbital radii, about 1.25 at the outer orbits.

So how should the maps be measured, since they do not mesh and corroborate, and their scales/legends are faulty?
Let's consider to farthest orbit of the Core, that of Pelorum (ignoring it's Inhabited moon Kaleidescope) orbiting Lux which orbits White Sun. According to the large map, Pelorum regularly circulates through 42.7Au orbital radius from White Sun.
Also considering the closest orbit of the Georgia System, that of Shadow (ignoring it's 3 Inhabitable moons) orbiting Murphy, which gets as far as 28.5Au away from the Georgia Sun, and thus circulates as near as 39.5Au from White Sun.
I seems clear that this measuring system is not valid, or else Hera, Bullet, Eris, Aphrodite, Sturges, Hill, Thornley, Anton, Shadow, Branson's Mark, Ossolambria, Summerfair, Persephone, Hades, Renao, Pelorum, and Kaleidescope are all going to have a galactic slugfest on a regular basis (and all are inhabitable except Hades, Bullet, and Shadow). So that seems unlikely. And that's only one location of celestial conflict.

Alternately, using the small version, Pelorum would only get as far away as about 34Au from White Sun, and Shadow would only get as close as about 50Au to White Sun. So this seems more reasonable.

Therefore, we can consider that the smaller version map is the accurate measuring scale for orbits around Suns, and that in the large version of Map, each System's orbital sizes are magnified to varying degree, beyond it's actual dimensions.

The smaller version does not include moons, or worlds orbiting Protostars. The large Map shows the orbits of these worlds, but not the moons. For measuring the orbital radius of these worlds, the inch scale can be used and then multiplied by the factor used for that system, or that Protostar.

I think this a reasonable method of evaluating and measuring with these maps. Anybody disagree on these points?
This has nothing to do with the massive discrepancies regarding scale of the Sun sizes, or world or moon sizes - that's for another time with much more discussion.

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Friday, February 13, 2009 12:29 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Assuming this above post is correct, then the farthest reaching worlds of each system (not including moons) would be:
Pelorum for Core (White Sun), at about 34.45Au from White Sun.

Shadow for Georgia System, at about 18.26Au, getting as near as 49.7Au and as far as 86.3Au from White Sun.

Silverhold for Red Sun, at about 23.25Au, getting as near as 44.7Au and as far as 91.3Au from White Sun.

Salisbury for Kalidasa, at about 15.4Au, getting as near as 105.6Au and as far as 136.4Au from White Sun.

Miranda for Blue Sun, at about 27.29Au, getting as near as 152.7Au and as far as 207.3Au from White Sun.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:30 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


edit: after the White Paper was posted around the end of Feb, this chart is updated with more accuracy in a March post below.

Based upon the last few posts, I will recalculate speed and distance figures from an above post.

In the Red Sun system, the orbit of Jiangyin has a radius of about 13/32 inch, and the orbit of Greenleaf has a radius of about 1 11/16 inch.
That gives a distance of 41/32 inch when they are nearest, and about 67/32 when farthest from each other.

With the above revelations (about 1.5 distortion factor in this system), this coverts to about 5.02Au when near and 8.208Au when far. We can assume in Safe that they will use max speed/acceleration when trying to get dying Book to Med Facilities, and this is supposed to be 10 hours. So 5 hours of acceleration,. and 5 hours of decceleration.
The min accel rate would be 0.20 Au/hour sq, and the fastest would be about 0.328 Au/hour sq.

A rudimentary time/distance table would be like this:
Time Min & Max distance/speed
1 hour. 0.1 @0.2 & 0.164 @0.328
2 hours. 0.4 @0.4 & 0.656 @0.656
3 hours. 0.9 @0.6 & 1.476 @0.984
4 hours. 1.6 @0.8 & 2.624 @1.312
5 hours. 2.5 @1.0 & 4.100 @1.640
6 hours. 3.6 @1.2 & 5.904 @1.968
7 hours. 4.9 @1.4 & 8.036 @2.296
8 hours. 6.4 @1.6 & 10.496 @2.624
9 hours. 8.1 @1.8 & 13.284 @2.952
10 hours. 10.0 @2.0 & 16.400 @3.280

15 hours. 22.5 @3.0 & 36.900 @4.92
20 hours. 40.0 @4.0 & 65.600 @6.56
25 hours. 62.5 @5.0 & 102.500 @8.20
30 hours. 90.0 @6.0 & 147.600 @9.84

32 hours. 102.4 @6.4

So it's about 25-32 hours to accelerate until traveled 100Au, then the same to deccelerate back to zero.

please post correction if I have erred.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:57 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Based upont the revised information above, we can now review the itineraries of the Verse.

Let's start with BDM Serenity.
Lilac to Beaumonde to Haven to Training House to Haven to Miranda to Mr. Universe's place.

Beaumonde in 15th orbital ring around Kalidasa, which is 121Au from White Sun. Beaumonde is about 13.4Au from Kalidasa Sun, so Beaumonde's farthest distance from White Sun is about 134.4Au.

Lilac, second moon on New Canaan in 2nd orbital ring around Blue Sun, which is 180Au from White Sun. New Canaan is about 2.39Au from Blue Sun, so the nearest distance to White Sun that New Canaan and Lilac get is about 177.6Au.
Therefore the shortest distance that Lilac and Beaumonde can get is about 43.2Au, or about 23-30 hours at max Serenity acceleration.

Haven, 1st moon on Deadwood in 7th orbital ring around Blue Sun. Deadwood is about 14.0Au from Blue Sun, so nearest disance to White Sun would be 166Au. Shortest distance from Beaumonde to Haven would be about 31.6Au, or about 20-26 hours at max Serenity accel/decel.

Miranda orbiting Burnham around Blue Sun isn't much distance from Haven. Miranda about 3.9Au from Burnham, and Burnham about 23.4Au from Blue Sun (8th orbital ring). So nearest that Miranda gets to Haven is about 5.5Au and farthest apart is about 41.3Au (about the saem as Lilac to Beaumonde closest range).

So, does this seem reasonable? Or is the Beaumonde distance out of wack? Does it seem reasonable that it took a day to get from Lilac to Beaumonde, and another day to get back to Haven (a short ways from Lilac)?
I didn't get that impression from film and scripts, how about you?
The travels to and from Training House are not a problem, nor are trips to and from Miranda.
Lemming has admitted that not all of the Map of the Verse is vetted within the series and BDM travel itinerary, so should we decide that this placement of Beaumonde in the Kalidasa System is one of these anomolies?
It would seem that if Beaumonde was in the Blue Sun system, or at least the same system as either Lilac or Haven, then the travel tiems would seem more in line with what the BDM showed.
Anybody else?

One wrinkle to consider is the upgrades to Serenity after TLB and before BDM. Apparently the proceeds from the fencing of the Lassiter paid for all the Serenity upgrades, like more blinking lights around the cockpit, and the new mule. Did they include speed/performance upgrades? Is their travel time quicker now? If so, it's also possible to consider one of the moons of Dragon's Egg as a
training House location.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009 11:44 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Training House location.

With the above listed travel times, we can narrow down the location of the Training House in the BDM - assuming we take Mal's "couple hours" from Haven to Training House, and same to return to Haven, as accurate.

With Haven as first moon on Deadwood, the next nearest planet is Gas Giant Dragon's Egg, and it's 5 Inhabitable moons - all about 2.0 Au away, at max proximity. This amounts to about 5-6 hours each way. Even if only 1.5Au distance, it would still take 4-5 hours each way, so it seems none of these moons are where Training House is.
That leaves just Deadwood, the 2nd moon New Omaha, or Haven itself as the location of Training House (according to Map of the Verse.)

Any comments on this?

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009 12:25 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Another itinerary is for Those Left Behind.

Starting on Constance, next at a dock which could be on Persephone since Badger is there, then someplace where Badger is left, then the site of Battle of Sturges, then to the Training House somewhere around Deadwood.

The Battle of Sturges might be near Sturges, but perhaps not. We can speculate so for initial computations, but cannot assume it is the case. We do not know how the battle was named - for instance, an incident during our recent century could have been named Battle of Bismark, when that ship was tracked, attacked, and finally sunk - it was nowhere near the Dakotas, as an example. Sturges is shown on Map of the Verse as 1st moon on Aphrodite, which is the world in 2nd orbital ring around protostar Murphy, being the 14th orbital ring of Georgia System.

Constance is the 3rd orbital path in Kalidasa System, about 1.4Au from it's Sun. So the closest it comes to White Sun is about 119.6Au.

Assuming Persephone is the place badger shows up, it's orbit is about 3.0Au from Lux, which orbits White Sun about 30.6Au, so the farthest Persephone gets is 33.6Au from White Sun.
So, the shortest travel distance from Constance to Persephone would be about 86.0Au, or about 32-42 hours of travel, at Serenity's max accel/decel.

Speculating that the Battle of Sturges was near Sturges, with Aphrodite being about 1.5Au from Murphy, which orbits about 16.0Au around Georgia Sun, the nearest Sturges would get to White Sun would be about 50.5Au.
So, the shortest travel distance from Persephone to Sturges would be about 17Au, or about 14-18 hours at Serenity's max accel/decel.

Deadwood can get as close as about 166Au to White Sun. So the shortest travel distance from Sturges to Deadwood would be about 110Au, or about 36-46 hours, at Serenity's max accel/decel.

I didn't see much reference to time in TLB, so does this seem like reasonable itinerary estimates to you folk?

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009 7:24 AM

RIPWASH


I mean no disrespect to anyone on this thread, but we really have to remember the theory of "A willing suspension of disbelief" when watching a show or movie. Now I'm not saying that the laws of physics or science should NOT apply, but MOST people do not know about the particulars of those laws and we're asked sometimes to simply accept what we're told and roll with it in order to enjoy the story. I remember reading an article about an astrophysicist getting upset with movies because the night skies are inaccruate and I thought it was fairly petty.

Again, I mean NO disrespect and I'm definately NOT looking to pick a fight. But is all of this really worth discussing if the manner in which humans GOT to the 'Verse is a little far fetched to begin with? I read somewhere that Joss mentioned there was NO faster than light travel in the series. Seeing as how the closest star to ours is several light years away . . . that means it would have taken humans well over 500 years to get there to begin with, not to mention scouting the planets/moons and then terraforming them (a process which took decades). Am I wrong?

So my whole point is . . . why get nit-picky over where the planets are, how far away they are from each other in terms of days traveled and the effects of the other suns?

(Shielding myself) . . . please don't hurt me . . .

Zoe: "Get it running again."
Mal: "Yeah"
Zoe: "So not running now"
Mal: "Not so much"
- Out of Gas

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009 10:15 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:
Originally posted by RIPWash:
I mean no disrespect to anyone on this thread, but we really have to remember the theory of "A willing suspension of disbelief" when watching a show or movie. Now I'm not saying that the laws of physics or science should NOT apply, but MOST people do not know about the particulars of those laws and we're asked sometimes to simply accept what we're told and roll with it in order to enjoy the story. I remember reading an article about an astrophysicist getting upset with movies because the night skies are inaccruate and I thought it was fairly petty.

Again, I mean NO disrespect and I'm definately NOT looking to pick a fight. But is all of this really worth discussing if the manner in which humans GOT to the 'Verse is a little far fetched to begin with? I read somewhere that Joss mentioned there was NO faster than light travel in the series. Seeing as how the closest star to ours is several light years away . . . that means it would have taken humans well over 500 years to get there to begin with, not to mention scouting the planets/moons and then terraforming them (a process which took decades). Am I wrong?

So my whole point is . . . why get nit-picky over where the planets are, how far away they are from each other in terms of days traveled and the effects of the other suns?

(Shielding myself) . . . please don't hurt me . . .


You said zseveral light years away. At the speed of light, that would mean several years. At half the speed of light, that would mean twice as much, like 5 or 6 years.
Joss said an entire generation never saw the outside of the ship during exodus to the Verse.
Lifespans have become 120 years in the upcoming 500 years, according to Joss.
So, even if only half light speed, that's about 60-70 light years away.
They started settling around 2220, apparently.
The terraqforming took decades, and the terraforming ships were pre-launched from Earth decades before the humans took off, so the worlds were largely pre-terraformed upon arrival of the human ships.

So what part of this does not compute for you?

Science and knowledge is continualloy evolving, and hopefully advancing. Perhaps at one time, science fiction was the realm of those who proposed the Earth was round, that the Sun does NOT revolve around the Earth, that the stars do not revolve around the Earth as their center. Some thing require GREAT suspensions of disbelievf, ohters not so much. Part of what many like about this Verse is the relative reality it holds to. No sounds of explosions in space. No sound in space. Adaptability of relative upside down/rightside up in space. Etc.
Some consider precognition to be sci fi, or even fantasy - others are already aware of the proof of this phenomena. Mind Reading? Whores at the epitome of the Social ladder? Are sucyh things so unbelievable?
Joss has stated there is no faster than light travel - or am I mistaken here? At least I don't recall he said there IS faster then light travel.

Either I'm missing your point, or I can't see it, focus on it.
This is a discussion, it should not hurt you. It may not seem like much of a discussion, but I am assuming there are several reasons for that - like many have not purchased a Map of the Verse yet, and much groundwork had to be laid first (the last few posts have been able to progress onward, utilizing the conclusions of the groundwork). I have continued on even lacking input from others, in the hope that when others purchase their Map of the Verse, or are ready to peruse, then this will be here for them to catch up with. Or build upon.

Additioanlly, there are others arond who are avid, or rabid, or obseessive, or something about things like fics (and I really do mean that in the most complimentary form). They oft inquire about times, ditances, locations, itineraries of the Verse, so they can form, fit, or finagle their fic or other work into the existing canon body of Verse work, and they might find this helpful. Of course, they may choose to ignore or modify or selectively believe portions or all of these discussion, conclusions, or musings. They might also get ideas about possibel fics or other questions about the Verse after reviewing some dicussions.
I think some have referred to this as fanwonking, and implying it is common among sci fi works.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009 11:29 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Itinerary for Pilot Serenity.

From Carrier Salvage aroun 0800-0900 to Persephone around 1200, planned stay until 1500 but abrupt departure sooner, then to Whitefall, and possibly on to Boros (not really certain about Boros).

Persephone around Lux is about 33.6Au from White Sun at it's farthest reach.

Whitehall is 4th moon on Athens, which is in the 9th orbital ring of the Georgia System. Athens is about 9.0Au from Georgia Sun, so is nearest White Sun at about 59Au distance. So at greatest proximity, Persephone and Whitefall are about 25.4Au apart from each other, or about 18-23 hours travel time at Serenity's max accel/decel.

Boros is the 3rd world in the Georgia System, about 3.0Au from it's Sun. So the minimum distance from Whitefall to Boros is about 6.0Au and the max distance is about 12.0Au.
So this max distance would take about 12-16Au to travel at Serenity's max accel/decel.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009 11:59 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Itinerary for The Train Job.

Start off in a Unification Day celebration bar on a moon with 3 worlds in the sky and a ringed body in the background while leaving atmo. Then to Ezra where Niska' Skyplex orbits, then to an unknown place where the towns of Hancock and Paradiso are located.

There are 2 worlds on the Map of the Verse with rings. New Canaan and Beylix. Beylix is closest to Ezra. It could be supposed that St. Lucius is the location of the U-Day bar. Beylix is in the first orbit around protostar Penglai, which is the 11th orbital ring of the Kalidasa Sun. Bexlix is about 1.3Au from Penglai, which is about 8.0Au from it's Sun, so Beylix gets as close as 111.7Au to White Sun.

Ezra is in the 1st orbital position in the Georgia System, about 1.4Au from the Sun. This means the farthest Ezra gets from White Sun is about 69.4u. So the closest Beylix and Ezra get to each other is about 42.3Au, for a travel time of about 24-29 hours at Serenity's max accel/decel.

This does seem out of line with the episode as portrayed. Above Lemming has already admitted that the Map of the Verse did not intend to show a world which was shown in the U-Day bar scene, so perhaps this is just an admitted error on the part of this identification in The Map of the Verse.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:28 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Itinerary for Shindig.

Start on Santo, on to Persephone.

Santo orbits protostar Qin Shi Huang, in the 8th orbital ring around White Sun. With Santo having about 2.2Au orbital radius, and QSH about 16.6Au orbital radius, the farthest Santo gets from White Sun is about 18.8Au.

The closest Persephone gets to White Sun is about 27.6Au. So the closest that Santo and Persephone could get to each other is about 8.8Au apart. This means a travel time of about 11-13 hours at Serenity's max accel/decel.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:43 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Itinerary for Our Mrs. Reynolds.

Starts on Triumph, planned to go to Beaumonde, should take about 5-6 days.

Triumph orbits protostar Heinlein, which is in the 9th orbital ring of the Red Sun. Triumph is about 1.5Au from Heinlein, which is about 19.6Au from Red Sun. So the farthest Triumph gets from White Sun is about 89.1Au.

Beaumonde in the Kalidasa System gets as close as 107.6Au to White Sun. So at greatest proximity, Triumph and Beaumonde get about 18.5Au apart. This would be about 15-19 hours at Serenity's max accel/decel.

This is obviously well within the stated 5-6 day range. This also suggests Red Sun and Kalidasa are nowhere near their nearest orbital paths at this time of the year.

On the other hand, the greatest distance between them will be about 223Au. In 5 days (120hours), Serenity can travel 360Au at the slowest range of the max accel (not exceeding 3.3Au, under half speed of light). This seems to show that not only is Serenity not at max speed, but also Red Sun is about opposite in the system from Kalidasa.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:47 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Itinerary for Jaynestown.

From OMR, we know that Serenity was not scheduled to depart Beaumonde until 7 November. Also, it took 5-6 days travel to get from Red Sun to Kalidasa.
Now, returning from Beaumonde to Higgin's Moon (perhaps with other stops in between), it must take at least another 5-6 days after 7 November, so Jaynestown must take place at least after 13 November.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:55 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Itinerary for Out of Gas.

The schedule is to get to Greenleaf in about a week, instead of a route which would normally take only 18 hours, according to Wash.

Greenleaf in the Red Sun system gives an 18 hour travel range out to the 2 protostars of the Red Sun, and the worlds around them. Persephone and Pelorum (and their moons) around Lux in the Core are at the far reaches of this range, on the verge of possible.

Higgin's Moon is not in this range, but Mal needed to get the Jaynestown merchandise to Bernoulli by the end of that week, so maybe Bernoulli was in on of these worlds of the Red Sun system, or around Lux.

So it is most likely that Out of Gas occured in the Red Sun system.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:56 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


I do not see other obvious time, distance, travel implications in the series, comics, or BDM.
Anybody else?

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 7:39 AM

RIPWASH


Well like I said, I meant no disrespect or intended to irk anyone.

I'll shut up!

Zoe: "Get it running again."
Mal: "Yeah"
Zoe: "So not running now"
Mal: "Not so much"
- Out of Gas

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 8:12 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:
Originally posted by RIPWash:
Well like I said, I meant no disrespect or intended to irk anyone.

I'll shut up!


I did not infer disrespect. I just didn't understand where you were seeing a problem. No need to shut up, I don't see anybody irked.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 8:34 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Implications about smuggling prize-winning cattle.

Serenity departs Persephone with their cargo in Shindig.
They arrive at Jiangyin to deliver the cargo, and Mal states the cargo has been aboard about 3 weeks.

The max distance Persephone gets away from White Sun is about 33.6Au.
The max distance Jiangyin gets away from White Sun is about 69.8Au.
The farthest apart Persephone gets from Jiangyin, when Lux is closest to Georgia System, is about 103.4Au. Even assuming they need to circumnavigate the Suns and such, it's still not more than 110Au at any time in the orbital cycles.

This 110Au means about 38-48 hours at Serenity's max accel/decel.
Reasonable to assume fragile cargo doesn't respond well to max accel/decel, I suppose. Half of the max that Serenity is capable of, that's still only stretching out travel to about 8 days. Running at a quarter of the max accel/decel rate, that makes travel time about 24-32 days. Thast's about the range indicated in the show.

So, should we assume precious cargo like prize-winning cattle require more subtle acceleration rates? Or is The Map of the Verse mistaken regarding the locations of Persephone and/or Jiangyin?

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 8:47 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Here I will attempt a graphic linear display of the orbital distances from White Sun. Each position is about 2Au.

xxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX

WxxxbsgoQbaxxxLxxxxxxspHHMxxxxxxxGxxxxxxxMHHpsxxxxxxsbgbPxxxKxxPbgbsxxxxxxxmxbxxxxddxxfxxBxxfxxddxxxbxm

W=White Sun, G=Georgia/Red Sun, K=Kalidasa, B=Blue Sun. Other capital letters are protostars, some worlds are shown as lower case letters, and Xs are spacers.

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Friday, February 20, 2009 12:21 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


So most of the Map of the Verse meshes with the times, distances, travels of BDS and BDM.

The apparent exceptions are:
Location of Beaumonde in relation to Lilac and Haven in BDM. Seems too far away.
There is no ringed world, as shown in the background while Serenity leaves atmo of the moon with the U-Day bar in The Train Job, near enough to Ezra. Also, this episode is expected to quickly follow Pilot Serenity, which ends on Whitefall or perhaps Boros. Ezra, Whitefall, and Boros are all near enough in the Georgia System, but the nearest ringed world is in Kalidasa. (Some rumor has it the ringed world is called Wibble. ;/)
Travel time from Persephone in Shindig to Jiangyin in Safe is reportedly 3 weeks, but these 2 locations aren't that far apart from each other.

Any comments?

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Friday, February 20, 2009 1:28 AM

RIPWASH


Taking all you said into account, I would say it was a combination of the cattle needing to travel at less than half maximum speed. Like Mal said, it was a pretty cramped space for a herd of cattle and they spook pretty easily. Not knowing how long the fuel cells last on a Firefly class ship, perhaps they also had to make a few stops along the way not only for fuel but also to accomodate Inara's schedule of appointments. I don't think she would allow Mal to keep her from doing business for three weeks.

I know, I know . . . after kicking up the dust earlier, here I am joining in the actual discussion. I just don't have any other knowledge of the 'Verse other than the show and movie (no map, no companion guide or comics). Just a newbie trying to contribute.

Zoe: "Get it running again."
Mal: "Yeah"
Zoe: "So not running now"
Mal: "Not so much"
- Out of Gas

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Sunday, February 22, 2009 7:15 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:
Originally posted by RIPWash:
Taking all you said into account, I would say it was a combination of the cattle needing to travel at less than half maximum speed. Like Mal said, it was a pretty cramped space for a herd of cattle and they spook pretty easily. Not knowing how long the fuel cells last on a Firefly class ship, perhaps they also had to make a few stops along the way not only for fuel but also to accomodate Inara's schedule of appointments. I don't think she would allow Mal to keep her from doing business for three weeks.

I know, I know . . . after kicking up the dust earlier, here I am joining in the actual discussion. I just don't have any other knowledge of the 'Verse other than the show and movie (no map, no companion guide or comics). Just a newbie trying to contribute.

Zoe: "Get it running again."
Mal: "Yeah"
Zoe: "So not running now"
Mal: "Not so much"
- Out of Gas

You've suspended disbelief?

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