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Originally posted by TheFerryMan:

Dinosuars: Maybe that is a reference to Wash and "This Land." Or barring that, what are dinosaurs? Something big, scary, and exilirating. Could describe Serienty, their space travel, or just Jayne. For some reason, I wanna lean towards the Wash thing.

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Originally posted by TheFerryMan:

And I was saying not that meant Wash's dinosaurs, but a similiar symbol.

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Originally posted by DarkSky:
at the beginning of 'Safe', with her and Simon as kids. She tells Simon that they got cut-off by Independents and can never return to their platoon. Sort of what happens later... Then she goes on to tell him that the Independents used dinosaurs. I wonder what that could mean. Maybe she refers to the rather low-tech planets many Independents seem to come from? Or old-fashioned values? Mal as a dinosaur in the high-tech Alliance world? Serenity a dinosaur? (I think in 'Serenity' it was mentioned that Firefly-class ships are not built anymore.)
And then there is the part about having to resort to cannibalism. Now this one is tricky. Does it refer to Reavers? In the Reaver thread someone suggested that Reavers are Alliance experiments like River. Or does she mean being criminals,'low-life vultures picking the flesh off the dead'?
Or maybe I'm just over-interpreting this scene...
Any thoughts anyone?

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Originally posted by DarkSky:

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Originally posted by TheFerryMan:

Dinosuars: Maybe that is a reference to Wash and "This Land." Or barring that, what are dinosaurs? Something big, scary, and exilirating. Could describe Serienty, their space travel, or just Jayne. For some reason, I wanna lean towards the Wash thing.

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I had thought it might be Wash's dinosaurs, as well. But then I can't really see the connection. River is hardly ever on the bridge (actually, is she ever?) and she doesn't really have much interaction with Wash. Also, Wash is not really an Independent, at least he wasn't in the war.

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Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
It seems to me that most of the prophetic/psychic stuff she says is from the ESP she got a the Acadamy. Before, she was just a genius-kid with a vivid imagination.
About the common knowledge of dino existance, they'd probably bring a big database-mainframe thing with most human knowledge on many colony ships.

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Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
It seems to me that most of the prophetic/psychic stuff she says is from the ESP she got a the Acadamy. Before, she was just a genius-kid with a vivid imagination.

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About the common knowledge of dino existance, they'd probably bring a big database-mainframe thing with most human knowledge on many colony ships.

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Originally posted by Candall:
"I mean dinosaurs chased me and my brother around all the time when we were kids.

Really? Did they sing?

(An e-cookie for whoever picks up on that reference )

B]

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Originally posted by caldeen:
No, no singing. Barney wasn't around when we were kids.

If there wasn't a more obvious purplebelly in the 'verse....

Hey kids! Blue Sun luvz you!

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Originally posted by Ruthie:
When you think about it, it's rather strange that dinosaurs are talked about at all in the 'Verse.

If you accept that the human explorers haven't found life on any other planets, then the only dinosaurs possible are the ones extinct on Earth-That-Was.
Did the migrants take the trouble to pack up all the dinosaur fossils from Earth's museums and take them with them? Seems unlikely.

So perhaps dinosuars are just so much part of our popular culture that the idea gets carried out into space, with some factual information in available on the cortex, and less factual information available from films etc. (Will they still be watching Jurassic Park and Land before Time 500 years hence? We still read Shakespere....)

But I have another idea that I find interesting. Dinosaurs were part of the development of our Earth.
Perhaps the future terraformers found that the dinosaur stage is a necessary stage for planets to go through before they can become sufficiently earth-like for humans? Of course, it would have to be greatly speeded up, they've only had 500 years...

So that would mean that, on some planets in an earlier stage of terraforming, dinosaurs could be live and well. This would make Wash's dinosaurs no more than models of current aninmals, and River's game no more suprising than a current child suggesting an army could use lions - enough to cause a suprised reaction from her brother and father, but not TOTALLY impossible.

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Ruthie
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By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man - man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him. (R.A.Heinlein)

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