Serenity Canon Question.

[Hotfoot]

Firefly has Agrav and pyskers. I think we can safely say it's not "Hard". Now, since that's been taken care of, what's the deal? Joss Whedon has already created his story and his background, and you know what? Frankly, it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference. It would have been better if he had never mentioned anything, because the tech and most of the backstory is entirely irrelevant to the story of the Crew of Serenity. However it does exist as the author wrote it, so deal with it. If Joss Whedon wants to change it, he will, but I doubt that's going to happen. Given that fact, why don't we think of HOW it could happen, rather than bemoaning that it is the case?

I do believe the point of Frigid asking (and correct me if I'm wrong) was to determine if there was an easier way to explain how Serenity's star systems were hooked up than the highly implausible method described in the movie.

Now, as for why FTL is harder than STL. We all know what STL is like. It's familiar to even the smallest child, because we see it every day. To do everything you can do in STL with FTL, the FTL has to either be virtually identical to STL, or there have to be lots of explanations as to why it works like X in Y scenario. Why? Because FTL does something we know can't be done normally in the real world. So in order to explain why things can happen in this crazy FTL space, the mechanism of the FTL drive needs to explained, it needs to be explored, which takes time away from what made the show important - the characters. Want to watch a show where they spend half the damn airtime talking about the tech? Go pick up any Star Trek show from TNG.

And if you do create tech, you do have to have limits on it. Serenity clearly has magic heat shield technology, but that doesn't prevent it from being in danger from uncontrolled re-entry. The claim that one level of terraforming being magic and allowing for ALL levels of terraforming is ludicrious. Joss Whedon decided what he wanted for his story, and last I checked, there were no Sci-Fi limits police (if there were, Star Trek would have died years ago for pretending to be Hard Sci-Fi). Terraforming is not magic (unless we're talking Genesis Device, which Firefly terraforming clearly is NOT), but rather an extension on various existince science and knowledge (we've been un-terraforming Earth for well over a century now). So stop whining that it's Magic, or I'll just go and claim that EVERY sci-fi is full of magic if it's not based on papers for technology that's coming out in 5-10 years, because it's just as valid an argument.

Once again, it's infinitely more likely to have a crazy star system than FTL - the only difference is how easy it is for you to accept this fact, and yes, it is a fact.

By the way, it does have corroboration - Shepard Book's voiceover from the re-airing of the series repeated the statement by River, the RPG has a map of the system, and of course, it's about the only way it makes sense without FTL - something we've never seen in the TV show or the movie.

[Stofsk]

Where is the supposed realism that is meant to be achieved coming from?
Is it something Joss Whedon actually said or is it just something inferred because 'NO FTL'='tries to be realistic'?

Generally speaking, No FTL does equal trying to be realistic. There's other things too, like slugthrowers prevailing in a combat environment (with stuff like lasers being unwieldy and expensive), no sound in space, and so on. I don't know if it's something Joss actually said, but given that the show's his baby and he wanted all of those things in it, it stands to reason to assume realism was his end-goal.

This is counteracted by the obvious gravitics technology that exists in the setting, and the unrealistic timeframe for terraforming dozens of moons and planets. In such a light, using FTL is no longer objectionable, because you've already introduced magictech into the setting.

Forget about Whedon's intentions. They don't matter. What matters is we have a naturalistic sci-fi setting that nevertheless employs magictech. We have no confirmation of FTL in the setting; we have River's fractured dream to tell us it was an STL exodus of Sol originally. Why this is accepted without a skeptic's eye I do not understand. People are excusing it because of ... well, no real reason really. People are ignoring the astrophysical concerns inherent in having a giant star system with dozens of habitable planet because they want to.

[Stofsk]

It would have been better if he had never mentioned anything, because the tech and most of the backstory is entirely irrelevant to the story of the Crew of Serenity.

Glad you're here to tell us these things, because I couldn't have worked this out on my own. No way.

However it does exist as the author wrote it, so deal with it. If Joss Whedon wants to change it, he will, but I doubt that's going to happen. Given that fact, why don't we think of HOW it could happen, rather than bemoaning that it is the case?

I don't give a fuck what the author intended, and I don't have to deal with it. I can bag the shit out of it all I want because it actually is open to criticism.

I do believe the point of Frigid asking (and correct me if I'm wrong) was to determine if there was an easier way to explain how Serenity's star systems were hooked up than the highly implausible method described in the movie.

Now, as for why FTL is harder than STL. We all know what STL is like. It's familiar to even the smallest child, because we see it every day. To do everything you can do in STL with FTL, the FTL has to either be virtually identical to STL, or there have to be lots of explanations as to why it works like X in Y scenario. Why? Because FTL does something we know can't be done normally in the real world. So in order to explain why things can happen in this crazy FTL space, the mechanism of the FTL drive needs to explained, it needs to be explored, which takes time away from what made the show important - the characters. Want to watch a show where they spend half the damn airtime talking about the tech? Go pick up any Star Trek show from TNG.

Actually, those shows spend half the time talking technobabble, so unless you want to claim I was advocating that route I'll label this under 'strawman'.

Shows like nBSG don't spend half the episodes time talking about their FTL drive; it's simply a fact of life. Gee, that's so hard to write.

The claim that one level of terraforming being magic and allowing for ALL levels of terraforming is ludicrious.

Not quite. The claim was that terraforming was done in a quick timeframe (years as opposed to CENTURIES), on dozens of rocks, which all ended up looking exactly like Earth, down to the vegetation, climate, gravity and atmosphere.

Joss Whedon decided what he wanted for his story, and last I checked, there were no Sci-Fi limits police (if there were, Star Trek would have died years ago for pretending to be Hard Sci-Fi).

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about here, but if you think that Firefly - or anything - has some sort of immutable status that absolves it from criticism then stop dreaming. Firefly is open to it just as any other show or book is open to it.

In fact, the reason why Star Trek is mocked is not because it was pretending to be Hard SF, but because it's fans were. I'm getting the same vibe with Browncoats with regards to Firefly/Serenity. I happen to love the show, that doesn't mean I can't point out flaws as I see them (and I'm not alone, as Petro, CT and others have chimed their similar opinion in this thread).

Terraforming is not magic (unless we're talking Genesis Device, which Firefly terraforming clearly is NOT), but rather an extension on various existince science and knowledge (we've been un-terraforming Earth for well over a century now). So stop whining that it's Magic,

Since you were chastising us for not talking about HOW this is so, then maybe you can explain how the terraforming in Firefly works. I would be very interested in hearing the HOWS in that regards, since all we've got is a timeframe (years) and a number of rocks (dozens) and supposedly a well defined system (one solar system, perhaps a trinary). By all means, explain to us the unshown mechanics of Firefly terraforming. Point to me the episodes that go into this.

Otherwise, calling it like I see it is valid. Realistic terraforming takes place on a timeframe of centuries, it certainly is not a case where you can turn dozens of moons into dozens of new earths (a claim made in the show).

or I'll just go and claim that EVERY sci-fi is full of magic if it's not based on papers for technology that's coming out in 5-10 years, because it's just as valid an argument.

And go ahead, I won't stop you.

What? You think I actually care? All sci-fi has magic in it. Firefly isn't alone in this. At best the STL voyage was canon, but the star system we see is so improbable with terraforming so incredible that it might as well be magic.

Once again, it's infinitely more likely to have a crazy star system than FTL - the only difference is how easy it is for you to accept this fact, and yes, it is a fact.

You seem to be under some kind of impression that because I find the lack of FTL an annoyance that I somehow cannot comprehend how one is impossible and the other is unlikely - a matter which beggars belief, since I've been saying this all along (that FTL is magictech, and that the crazy system is improbable; simply scroll up).

By the way, it does have corroboration - Shepard Book's voiceover from the re-airing of the series repeated the statement by River, the RPG has a map of the system, and of course, it's about the only way it makes sense without FTL - something we've never seen in the TV show or the movie.

We've never seen FTL in the show? We've also never seen the STL exodus of earth either.

[Batman]

Now, as for why FTL is harder than STL. We all know what STL is like. It's familiar to even the smallest child, because we see it every day. To do everything you can do in STL with FTL, the FTL has to either be virtually identical to STL, or there have to be lots of explanations as to why it works like X in Y scenario. Why? Because FTL does something we know can't be done normally in the real world. So in order to explain why things can happen in this crazy FTL space, the mechanism of the FTL drive needs to explained, it needs to be explored, which takes time away from what made the show important - the characters. Want to watch a show where they spend half the damn airtime talking about the tech? Go pick up any Star Trek show from TNG.

And this is where I think you're wrong. You're assuming the average viewer will KNOW there's a difference other than the speed, accepts that FTL is impossible, and cares a decomposing mynock about the mechanics of the FTL drive (unlike us). They'll notice that both ships are FTL (as per dialogue or nifty SFX), one ship closes to the other, they dock, and boarding ensues. FTL hijacking achieved.
EDIT: Boy that was one embarrasing typo.

[The Silence and I]

Actually, I don't have to 'just deal with it'. Firefly and Serenity are open to criticism just like everything under the sun. No FTL and whacky, monster star systems is just an example of Joss getting his shit wrong.

Did Joss get his shit wrong? Sure. Does this matter? Not within SOD. No FTL = very crowded space system(s). Unless you leave SOD you actually DO have to deal with that.

Because, yes, it can happen, it is possible (albeit not probable) to have a star system like that, but he nevertheless uses magictech to explain it away anyway - which completely invalidates the supposed-realism that is meant to be achieved.

I don't give a rat's ass if it is supposed to be realistic, or hard sci fi, and I don't care if you think the supposed realism was invalidated. This has no bearing on SOD. They cannot be traveling from system to system unless they are within such an improbably crowded star cluster that everything is so close intersystem travel is possible at SLT. That is functionally no different than a huge monster system, and not a whole hell of a lot more reasonable to boot. So unless you have evidence they actually do have FTL and have hidden it the whole time, you have to deal with an improbable system or group of systems. Unless you leave SOD, in which case why are we talking about anything involving the canon?

What I'm seeing here is some people taking that one scene and declaring this must be the kind of universe Serenity is set in, forgetting the fact that it takes place inside River's head and has (from memory) no independent corroboration.

Which might be a point except that River has to be correct, or nearly correct thanks to A) the number of different worlds B) the lack of FTL. Just. Deal. With. It.

[Stofsk]

Actually, I don't have to 'just deal with it'. Firefly and Serenity are open to criticism just like everything under the sun. No FTL and whacky, monster star systems is just an example of Joss getting his shit wrong.

Did Joss get his shit wrong? Sure. Does this matter? Not within SOD. No FTL = very crowded space system(s). Unless you leave SOD you actually DO have to deal with that.

My response to you was a 'don't tell me what I can/can't say WRT Firefly/Serenity'. And I'm repeating this again.

And yes, it does matter in terms of SoD. At least one other poster in this thread has actually said River's dream ruins his SoD (Petro, page one) followed by CT who agreed. Followed by me.

I don't give a rat's ass if it is supposed to be realistic, or hard sci fi, and I don't care if you think the supposed realism was invalidated. This has no bearing on SOD. They cannot be traveling from system to system unless they are within such an improbably crowded star cluster that everything is so close intersystem travel is possible at SLT. That is functionally no different than a huge monster system, and not a whole hell of a lot more reasonable to boot. So unless you have evidence they actually do have FTL and have hidden it the whole time, you have to deal with an improbable system or group of systems. Unless you leave SOD, in which case why are we talking about anything involving the canon?

Except the only thing that says the STL exodus is 'canon' is River's dream at the start of Serenity - hence the whole existence of this thread. You accept that as canon, I do not, and my reasons are already laid out.

In other words, while I don't have proof of FTL you don't have proof of an STL exodus.

What I'm seeing here is some people taking that one scene and declaring this must be the kind of universe Serenity is set in, forgetting the fact that it takes place inside River's head and has (from memory) no independent corroboration.

Which might be a point except that River has to be correct, or nearly correct thanks to A) the number of different worlds

Which has nothing to do with the veracity of her dream.

B) the lack of FTL.

Which there's no evidence of, just like how there's no evidence of the STL exodus.

Just. Deal. With. It.

Do not be condescending with me.

[Hotfoot]

Glad you're here to tell us these things, because I couldn't have worked this out on my own. No way.

Yes, because your demanding that Joss Whedon bow to your laws of sci-fi illustrates that you are looking at this objectively and not playing a game of "Hey look, I'm a better writer than Joss Whedon!" Writing Sci-Fi is more than simply being able to make reasonable assumptions of how the future will be based on technology.

I don't give a fuck what the author intended, and I don't have to deal with it. I can bag the shit out of it all I want because it actually is open to criticism.

I'm aware it is open to criticism, but I fail to see how going on and on about how it should have been done resolves how it WAS done. When we analyze a Sci-Fi setting, first we decide if it's coherant enough to analyze, and then we analyze it. If some weird stuff crops up, we find ways to explain it that don't rape SoD. If too much weird stuff starts showing up, we can throw our hands up and give up, but I don't see how going on about how you wanted to see it set up makes an ounce of difference. This isn't a thread about criticising Firefly/Serenity persay, but how to explain some wierd shit that cropped up without destroying SoD. Meanwhile, you DO have to deal with it, because it's not just River's fevered hallucinations (and of course, if that part was crap, the entire sequence and the later one were both crap too, which invalidates a significant plot point later in the movie, which clearly happened), but in fact it's backed up by the OPENING TO THE SHOW.

Actually, those shows spend half the time talking technobabble

Yes, I do believe I just said that. In fact, I did!

so unless you want to claim I was advocating that route I'll label this under 'strawman'.

I'm not even sure why you're invoking strawman. I was responding to both you and Batman. You may have noticed we're not the only two in the thread.

Shows like nBSG don't spend half the episodes time talking about their FTL drive; it's simply a fact of life. Gee, that's so hard to write.

BSG FTL is also very simple. It's point to point. Start here, end there. You CAN'T hijack a BSG ship mid-jump. It also, if you'll note, gives off a jump signature, which means it can be traced (and in fact has). This makes several of the stories in Firefly much more difficult to justify (and you'll note that there haven't been stealth infiltrations from Cylon craft in BSG, something that has happened on Firefly).

Not quite. The claim was that terraforming was done in a quick timeframe (years as opposed to CENTURIES), on dozens of rocks, which all ended up looking exactly like Earth, down to the vegetation, climate, gravity and atmosphere.

Oh re-ha-heely? Years versus Centuries? More like decades. Unrealistic, you say? Who says centuries is realistic? You? Sure, processing the atmosphere of a planet is a big process, but with a big enough machine, or an efficient enough process, it could be done. It's tough, but it's not impossible, especially since you don't know the states of the planets and the moons used, and it's pretty obvious that they didn't convert EVERYTHING perfectly. Out of all the planets and all of the moons, not everything was used. So magic terraforming goes out the window.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about here, but if you think that Firefly - or anything - has some sort of immutable status that absolves it from criticism then stop dreaming. Firefly is open to it just as any other show or book is open to it.

In fact, the reason why Star Trek is mocked is not because it was pretending to be Hard SF, but because it's fans were. I'm getting the same vibe with Browncoats with regards to Firefly/Serenity. I happen to love the show, that doesn't mean I can't point out flaws as I see them (and I'm not alone, as Petro, CT and others have chimed their similar opinion in this thread).

Oh boo-hoo, you got a vibe and so you jumped on it. Go cry. Whether the fans think the show tried to be hard sci-fi is irrelevant for the thread. I pointed out a fact about a supersystem being more possible than FTL because it's TRUE. It doesn't make it hard sci-fi because hard sci-fi wouldn't have the ridiculously implausible supersystem, Agrav, or psykers. Christ, is that so hard to comprehend?

This was a thread about resolving a weird bit of the story while mantaining SoD, not about ripping into a series because you got the impression that some Firefly fans were trying to pin some Hard SF mojo on the show. Meanwhile, yes, Star Trek pretended to be Hard Sci-Fi. They fucking hired Physicists to feed them stuff to put on the show and put up stuff on the show's website about how much the show followed real science.

Since you were chastising us for not talking about HOW this is so, then maybe you can explain how the terraforming in Firefly works. I would be very interested in hearing the HOWS in that regards, since all we've got is a timeframe (years) and a number of rocks (dozens) and supposedly a well defined system (one solar system, perhaps a trinary). By all means, explain to us the unshown mechanics of Firefly terraforming. Point to me the episodes that go into this.

Otherwise, calling it like I see it is valid. Realistic terraforming takes place on a timeframe of centuries, it certainly is not a case where you can turn dozens of moons into dozens of new earths (a claim made in the show).

Realistic terraforming with what level of technology, smartass? Can you tell me what advances we'll have in materials science in the next ten years? The next twenty? The next hundred? I mean, seriously, we can't do it now, and we know that it's most likely not something we'll ever do in weeks or months, but decades isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility. Please, tell me how this is IMPOSSIBLE, and I will show you how EVERY OTHER PIECE OF TECH IN THE FUCKING SHOW AND EVERY OTHER SCI-FI IS MAGIC.

or I'll just go and claim that EVERY sci-fi is full of magic if it's not based on papers for technology that's coming out in 5-10 years, because it's just as valid an argument.

And go ahead, I won't stop you.

What? You think I actually care? All sci-fi has magic in it. Firefly isn't alone in this. At best the STL voyage was canon, but the star system we see is so improbable with terraforming so incredible that it might as well be magic.

You're an idiot then. Sci-Fi isn't about throwing out magic and writing a story about it, that's called Fantasy. Science Fiction takes technology that already exists, extrapolates where it could go, then paints a society that is changed by that technology, meanwhile usually making some sort of comment on some aspect of society in the process. If the point you're trying to make can't be made with realistic tech, sometimes you bend the rules a little, but this is turning into a massive thread hijack about what makes something science fiction.

You seem to be under some kind of impression that because I find the lack of FTL an annoyance that I somehow cannot comprehend how one is impossible and the other is unlikely - a matter which beggars belief, since I've been saying this all along (that FTL is magictech, and that the crazy system is improbable; simply scroll up).

You seem to also be of the opinion that in this star system you've got a bunch of planets which were so different from Earth that they required extreme amount of terraforming, which again, may not be the case. The level of terraforming required is directly proportional to how far the target planet's atmosphere et al is different from Earth's norm. Again, this would be an unlikely event, but not an impossible one.

We've never seen FTL in the show? We've also never seen the STL exodus of earth either.

....now you're just being retarded. We've never seen any FTL speeds in the show, we've never seen them in hyperspace (or anything other than plain old normal space) even when they're on long-ass trips between planets. They constantly talk about being picked up by patrols mid-route. But hey, sure, there's FTL, even though there's ZERO EVIDENCE FOR IT in visuals or dialog. Meanwhile, there are more than one indicators that the entire setting is one supersystem. The lack of any FTL indicators reinforces this, and while you may not care about author intent, it's pretty fucking clear in this case and there's not much room for interpretation, so why don't we come back to the original point of the thread, which is how to explain the supersystem without annihilating the SoD. Even if we throw River's dream out the window, the evidence is still there, so as Silence said, deal with it. You don't get to toss something out just because you don't like it.

[Hotfoot]

And this is where I think you're wrong. You're assuming the average viewer will KNOW there's a difference other than the speed, accepts that FTL is impossible, and cares a decomposing mynock about the mechanics of the FTL drive (unlike us). They'll notice that both ships are FTL (as per dialogue or nifty SFX), one ship closes to the other, they dock, and boarding ensues. FTL hijacking achieved.
EDIT: Boy that was one embarrasing typo.

Most people understand that the faster you go, the more powerful your engine has to be. Most people get the concept that you're not supposed to go faster than light, and to do so requires a lot of power, just like they understand it's hard to get their car past 200 mph.

Again, STL is easier to understand than FTL, just like FTL is easier to understand than time travel and hopping between alternate realities.

[frigidmagi]

Okay folks, let's all take a minute and calm down.

[The Silence and I]

My response to you was a 'don't tell me what I can/can't say WRT Firefly/Serenity'. And I'm repeating this again.

You are entitled to your opinion of course.

And yes, it does matter in terms of SoD. At least one other poster in this thread has actually said River's dream ruins his SoD (Petro, page one) followed by CT who agreed. Followed by me.

The solution then is to write off the dream and ignore everything that cannot be explained?

Which has nothing to do with the veracity of her dream.

...great. So? They say the Devil is in the details, but in this case the details are not very important. Even if River got various details wrong she still describes something that must exist: an improbably large and complicated star system, and some kind of exodus from Earth that was in the past. Was it 500 years ago? I guess we cannot be sure, but it happened, and it was STL--because they still lack FTL even all these years later, and they arrived in good enough shape to rapidly terraform many, many planets/moons and possibly even reshape the solar system. I find loosing FTL along the way unlikely here.

B) the lack of FTL.

Which there's no evidence of, just like how there's no evidence of the STL exodus.

You think there is no evidence for a lack of FTL in Firefly/Serenity? I agree there is no direct statement: "we have no faster than light travel" but really--you watched the show, right?

Do not be condescending with me.

*shrug* I don't want to annoy you, but you do seem to be on some kind of quest here and stronger than normal words seemed more likely to affect.

[The Silence and I]

A thought, can we take the opening part of the film as literal truth?

We are seeing a dream, a dream of a young lady whose mind is fracturing and breaking under immense strain. Can it be trusted as a 100% factual recounting of history?

I will respond to this again, more clearly for the benefit of those who do not want to delve through my posts for the scattered pieces of the answer I gave.

No. As seen in movie it cannot be taken as 100% literal. River does not suffer from memory issues, but as she was dreaming she may not be showing us everything, or a completely accurate picture of events as she was taught them. That said, there is no better picture of past events and even if she was wildly dreaming up random events what we are left with is this: Joss has set up a world the history of which requires a past exodus from Earth That Was, and which itself requires either a highly unlikely monster of a starsystem, or a highly unlikely collection of nearby starsystems--choose your poison.

So even if River made it all up she is still describing something similar in appearance to what must have happened, and to what exists now. I am sorry for those who do not like it, but really, there is no other acceptable solution. Many worlds, no FTL, no Earth. Do the math people.

[Stofsk]

Yes, because your demanding that Joss Whedon bow to your laws of sci-fi

No I'm not, I'm saying that he made a sci-fi show that has a particular feature in it that ruins my suspension of disbelief. This is a criticism I level at it as a member of the audience.

illustrates that you are looking at this objectively and not playing a game of "Hey look, I'm a better writer than Joss Whedon!"

I don't know if you're being sarcastic here. If you are, I can assure you that my intention was not to lambast Whedon for his decision and to toot my own horn.

Writing Sci-Fi is more than simply being able to make reasonable assumptions of how the future will be based on technology.

True. Not writing wildly improbable settings is another factor.

I don't give a fuck what the author intended, and I don't have to deal with it. I can bag the shit out of it all I want because it actually is open to criticism.

I'm aware it is open to criticism, but I fail to see how going on and on about how it should have been done resolves how it WAS done.

*snip*...but I don't see how going on about how you wanted to see it set up makes an ounce of difference.

The meat of this tangent has been about magic terraforming and lack of FTL, not about what I may or may not think would have worked better.

That I do wonder why he decided on this route is something I acknowledged in my first post in this thread. You responded to that post by complaining about my Sol-only speculation, which I then addressed and then you complained again, this time at how I regarded the terraforming in Firefly as 'magic'.

This isn't a thread about criticising Firefly/Serenity persay, but how to explain some wierd shit that cropped up without destroying SoD. Meanwhile, you DO have to deal with it, because it's not just River's fevered hallucinations (and of course, if that part was crap, the entire sequence and the later one were both crap too, which invalidates a significant plot point later in the movie, which clearly happened), but in fact it's backed up by the OPENING TO THE SHOW.

This thread isn't about criticising Firefly, that is true. It's about determining whether a dream sequence had by a mentally traumatised young woman should be taken as literal truth.

The opening to the show you harp on about isn't on my DVDs. So this thread could also call those into question. The RPG is a non-issue; frankly, I'm operating on an episodes and movie basis, and if you want to include peripheral material then fine but I haven't heard anything about it's canon status. Even if it did hold a place in a canonicity debate I still wouldn't hold it higher than the films.

Actually, those shows spend half the time talking technobabble

Yes, I do believe I just said that. In fact, I did!

so unless you want to claim I was advocating that route I'll label this under 'strawman'.

I'm not even sure why you're invoking strawman. I was responding to both you and Batman. You may have noticed we're not the only two in the thread.

Then use the quote-reply function of the board software. I am not omniscient, and if you're going to complain about people responding to points you intended for somebody else to respond to, you've got no-one to blame for it but your own laziness.

*snip BSG FTL*

That was meant to say you don't need to spend half an episode writing about technobabble, which you seemed to imply would occur in this case.

Oh re-ha-heely? Years versus Centuries? More like decades. Unrealistic, you say? Who says centuries is realistic? You? Sure, processing the atmosphere of a planet is a big process, but with a big enough machine, or an efficient enough process, it could be done. It's tough, but it's not impossible, especially since you don't know the states of the planets and the moons used, and it's pretty obvious that they didn't convert EVERYTHING perfectly. Out of all the planets and all of the moons, not everything was used. So magic terraforming goes out the window.

No it doesn't. Certainly not because you say so.

Yes, you're right that we don't know the state the planets were in prior to terraforming. The results we see onscreen make it so that it doesn't matter; every moon is more or less identical in appearance. Every planet has 1 gravity, standard atmosphere pressure as well as mix, and the climate tends to be within earth norms. Flora and fauna are all terran-analogous as well, to the point where they might very well be a transplanted biosphere for all we can tell.

Since they're all terraformed to the point of equivalence, and in a timeframe of decades rather than centuries, and we're not given any detail as to how this all occured, I am fully justified in calling it magic terraforming. If Joss isn't going to go into it, it might as well be magic.

Oh boo-hoo, you got a vibe and so you jumped on it. Go cry.

Cry about what, asshole? How my initial entry into this thread was a pie-in-the-sky innocuous speculation, which you took and ran a mile with?

Whether the fans think the show tried to be hard sci-fi is irrelevant for the thread.

Then why did you and Silence bring it up? I certainly wasn't the first to bring up the issue of impossibility/realism into this discussion; that was YOU, in your first post in this thread.

I pointed out a fact about a supersystem being more possible than FTL because it's TRUE. It doesn't make it hard sci-fi because hard sci-fi wouldn't have the ridiculously implausible supersystem, Agrav, or psykers. Christ, is that so hard to comprehend?

And I'm the one with the reading comprehension problem? I yet again repeat what I've said plenty of times in this fucking thread (maybe you can read it this time): FTL is impossible, a massive trinary superinhabited system is not, but it is wildly improbable. I've only said this half a dozen times already.

Would I prefer it if FTL was in the show instead? Yes. Am I losing sleep over it? No, I'm not. Now can we drop this ridiculous how-I'm-suffering bullshit act of yours?

This was a thread about resolving a weird bit of the story while mantaining SoD, not about ripping into a series because you got the impression that some Firefly fans were trying to pin some Hard SF mojo on the show.

I wasn't ripping into the show, I was airing a particular grievance I have with it, which can be limited to one or two points grand TOTAL, all of which I lay at the hands of Joss Whedon. Why not? Since he's the show's creator the buck stops with him. You consider this 'ripping'? You consider this harsh, unfair criticism? You think I hate the show or something? It's nice to know you can make an appeal to motive, but it doesn't have any relevance.

Realistic terraforming with what level of technology, smartass? Can you tell me what advances we'll have in materials science in the next ten years? The next twenty? The next hundred? I mean, seriously, we can't do it now, and we know that it's most likely not something we'll ever do in weeks or months, but decades isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility. Please, tell me how this is IMPOSSIBLE, and I will show you how EVERY OTHER PIECE OF TECH IN THE FUCKING SHOW AND EVERY OTHER SCI-FI IS MAGIC.

Hey dipshit, maybe you forgot the part I pointed out about how dozens of moons were terraformed and they ALL have a terran biosphere and they ALL have 1 gravity. There is not ONE low-gee moon out there. Yet we have physical evidence of moons in this solar system and how they're more often than not low-gee.

Even if you can transplant terran flora and fauna to dozens of worlds, in any sort of reasonable timeframe (decades even), and create a fully habitable biosphere that is in ALL RESPECTS earth-like, that doesn't account for the fact every world we see has a standard 1 gee of gravity. There's your magic terraforming, right there.

Do I care? Does this shatter my appreciation for Firefly? Are you going to continue with that strawman (YAR STOFSK IS CRITICISING THE SHOW!!!)? But is it magic terraforming? YES.

You seem to also be of the opinion that in this star system you've got a bunch of planets which were so different from Earth that they required extreme amount of terraforming, which again, may not be the case. The level of terraforming required is directly proportional to how far the target planet's atmosphere et al is different from Earth's norm. Again, this would be an unlikely event, but not an impossible one.

That assumes the only thing to terraforming to worry about is the atmosphere - which is flat out wrong.

Temperature, climate, seasonal variation, hydrography, the biosphere, gravity, how long the days are. All of those are factors, not just the atmosphere mix. And what about atmosphere pressure? A dense atmosphere is different to a thin atmosphere.

Again, it's not that I'm assuming the dozens of moons and planets were widely different, it's that they all ended up the same. But I'm sure you're just going to gloss over this, demand me to explain how this is IMPOSSIBLE!!!1 to account for by terraforming.

....now you're just being retarded.

Go fuck yourself.

We've never seen any FTL speeds in the show, we've never seen them in hyperspace (or anything other than plain old normal space) even when they're on long-ass trips between planets. They constantly talk about being picked up by patrols mid-route. But hey, sure, there's FTL, even though there's ZERO EVIDENCE FOR IT in visuals or dialog. Meanwhile, there are more than one indicators that the entire setting is one supersystem. The lack of any FTL indicators reinforces this, and while you may not care about author intent, it's pretty fucking clear in this case and there's not much room for interpretation, so why don't we come back to the original point of the thread, which is how to explain the supersystem without annihilating the SoD. Even if we throw River's dream out the window, the evidence is still there, so as Silence said, deal with it. You don't get to toss something out just because you don't like it.

Actually I can toss something out because it's veracity is called directly into question. This thread is about River's dream at the start of Serenity - and whether as Frigid asks, should be considered literal truth. I say no, because it breaks SoD. It's a fucking dream sequence for christ's sake. I don't have to take anything in it at face value. You choose to do so? That's your prerogative, but I don't have to follow it, and if you want to show that it's backed up and corroborated through the show - fine. Go ahead. But the thread is about whether we should take a motherfucking dream sequence as literal truth, when it's shown the person who's dreaming is a loony.

Everything else we've discussed has been tangenital to that.

[Stofsk]

I will respond to this again, more clearly for the benefit of those who do not want to delve through my posts for the scattered pieces of the answer I gave.

No. As seen in movie it cannot be taken as 100% literal. River does not suffer from memory issues, but as she was dreaming she may not be showing us everything, or a completely accurate picture of events as she was taught them. That said, there is no better picture of past events and even if she was wildly dreaming up random events what we are left with is this: Joss has set up a world the history of which requires a past exodus from Earth That Was, and which itself requires either a highly unlikely monster of a starsystem, or a highly unlikely collection of nearby starsystems--choose your poison.

Any analysis of history looks at the source. Not only is River dreaming which is automatically problematic, but we are seeing a dramatisation of the exodus from the perspective of the Alliance; it is not a "This happened in the past, now fast forward to the future". As they say history is written by the victors, and we see in the same sequence how the Independents were demonised and how the Reavers quote-unquote 'Don't exist'.

So there is more that is wrong with that scene than just the fact River is dreaming it. Even if that lesson actually happened and was not a random set of neural impulses, it was instructed from a deliberately-skewed Alliance perspective. That's assuming it was a real-life lesson, and not perhaps an attempt at mind control. (Given River was in a lab at the time this is not so improbable; she complains throughout the show about them tinkering with her brain)

So even if River made it all up she is still describing something similar in appearance to what must have happened, and to what exists now. I am sorry for those who do not like it, but really, there is no other acceptable solution. Many worlds, no FTL, no Earth. Do the math people.

At this point FTL doesn't matter, we're back on topic and that is: looking at the scene and asking how 'true' it is. While a STL exodus of Earth That Was is strongly implied in that scene it is not a be-all end-all historical, SoD depiction. It is told to us through more than one perspective. Therefore it should not be taken literally.

I trust my point has now been made clearer as well?

[The Silence and I]

Any analysis of history looks at the source. Not only is River dreaming which is automatically problematic, but we are seeing a dramatisation of the exodus from the perspective of the Alliance; it is not a "This happened in the past, now fast forward to the future". As they say history is written by the victors, and we see in the same sequence how the Independents were demonised and how the Reavers quote-unquote 'Don't exist'.

So there is more that is wrong with that scene than just the fact River is dreaming it. Even if that lesson actually happened and was not a random set of neural impulses, it was instructed from a deliberately-skewed Alliance perspective. That's assuming it was a real-life lesson, and not perhaps an attempt at mind control. (Given River was in a lab at the time this is not so improbable; she complains throughout the show about them tinkering with her brain)

You'll surely notice now I point it out that I did in fact allude to all that right in the text you quoted I do grant you I did not bold or italicize it.

At this point FTL doesn't matter, we're back on topic and that is: looking at the scene and asking how 'true' it is. While a STL exodus of Earth That Was is strongly implied in that scene it is not a be-all end-all historical, SoD depiction. It is told to us through more than one perspective. Therefore it should not be taken literally.

I trust my point has now been made clearer as well?

What you just said is clearer, yes. I still think you are not seeing why I do look at FTL: it is precisely because FTL is absent that I can infer there is some truth to River's dream automatically.

I agree that in the general case a dream cannot be held as truth automatically, but I contest what I percieve as your proposal that River's dream is useless. I contest this because the lack of FTL begs the existence of several important elements in River's dream. Not perhaps exactly as she dreamed them, or was taught them, but their existence in some fashion is required by the lack of FTL.

We can agree her dream may not be 100% truth (I said that already), but I must assert her dream is not dismissable as a general case because outside events back parts of it up after a fashion.

Am I clear to you now?

[Stofsk]

Am I clear to you now?

Yes.

Hotfoot: I'm not interested in continuing this. If you want to crow victory then fine, but I'm not interested in continuing a tangenital argument that's come close to derailing Frigid's thread. To be honest I got too involved in it to begin with.

[Hotfoot]

In general practice, it's poor form to say "I don't care" after posting a rebuttal, so here's the short of it: I don't care that you criticized the show. I cared that you were using that critique as part of your argument that River's dream was a lie, when in fact it had been corroborated by other sources in the show. Thus, your criticism of the show was essentially pointless to the discussion involved in the thread, and became useless bitching spawned by a problem you had with the show, and that is what pissed me off.

I'm willing to let it drop, but I wanted to let you know where I was coming from.