Serenity: One Solar System

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-10-03 11:32am

Is this even possible? Different star size/type? Some fluke of orbiting? Any conceivable way to make so many planets and moons receive enough solar radiation to sustain Earth-based ecologies?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-03 11:46am

It's not likely or very realistic. I would have prefered a small star cluster.

Glimmervoid · Post by **Glimmervoid** » 2005-10-03 11:54am

Is it more likely than developing any type of FLT though?

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2005-10-03 11:58am

Do they have FTL in Firefly verse? I was under the impression that they do not.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-03 11:59am

I would frankly prefer if they had some kind of low FTL and it was a star cluster with a diameter of say 25 lightyears rather than having a single system filled with gas giants and hundreds of moons.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-10-03 12:01pm

I saw the movie yesterday, and wasn't it something like 20 worlds total? That could be possible if the system is a binary star, with the other star far enough out that it has its own solar system with many planets, but not too far for traveling. Or, the system's gas giants may have a good number of planet-sized moons, and they are under continual support from terraforming technology.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-10-03 12:02pm

KrauserKrauser wrote:Do they have FTL in Firefly verse? I was under the impression that they do not.

In the movie, they didn't.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2005-10-03 12:02pm

What they can do is vary the amount of green house gases in the atmosphere to make planets of various orbital distances have roughly the same climate, although it's obvious that there will be (and are) differences between the various planets and moons.

Demiurge · Post by **Demiurge** » 2005-10-03 12:03pm

It isn't realistic, but I don't have much of a problem with it. I would have preferred an interstellar scale. This is just one of those sci-fi show things like having numerous habitable, earth-like worlds and aliens that are identical to humans. Or cowboys in space.

An interesting note, in the visual guide Whedon mentioned that the colonists used "gravity regulation" during terraforming. It makes me think of something like a ship's artificial gravity system on a planetary scale.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-03 12:03pm

Well, if it was a binary or trinary, that would be much better.

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2005-10-03 12:15pm

I don't mind the one-system idea, but there don't have to be hundreds of Earthlike bodies. They could just get lucky and find a system with two planets at the proper distance to be terraformed into Earthlike planets, and the proper size to have Earthlike gravity. The show could easily take place in less built up areas of those planets. It's not like the show ever showed more than a small part of any one planet. If they're bound and determined to have the main characters fly around, the frontier could be sparsely inhabited planets, moons and asteroids with small communites of humans in domes and/or living underground.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-10-03 12:18pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I would frankly prefer if they had some kind of low FTL and it was a star cluster with a diameter of say 25 lightyears rather than having a single system filled with gas giants and hundreds of moons.

If its not an unusually well-spaced binary, trinary, or even quaternary system, this would probably be the best bet - to have about 3 or 4 gas giants in the system's habitable zone, each with a decent number of moons large enough for terraforming. Hell, Ganymede is almost the size of Mars, here in the Solar System; with a gas giant in the habitable zone, you could probably get some fine worlds that are large enough to be habitable, without a layer of ice 1000 km deep like on Callisto or Ganymede.

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2005-10-03 12:38pm

Would a terraformed moon orbiting a gas giant get enough sunlight to sustain life when it goes behind the gas giant it orbits? Even if it only takes a few weeks to go around its planet, wouldn't the temperatures swing back and forth quickly, wearing down building materials and people's sanity?

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-10-03 12:54pm

CDiehl wrote:Would a terraformed moon orbiting a gas giant get enough sunlight to sustain life when it goes behind the gas giant it orbits? Even if it only takes a few weeks to go around its planet, wouldn't the temperatures swing back and forth quickly, wearing down building materials and people's sanity?

Only if the sunlight was completely eclipsed by the mother planet for longer than a few days. Even then, the atmosphere could probably hold enough heat to keep the planet from freezing over. Still, you would get some pretty interesting storm systems.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2005-10-03 01:28pm

Why not just assume they have advanced terraforming and just landed, terraformed the planets, and viola.

I mean, it doesnt even need to be a binary. There are scores of moons and planets in our star system, assuming some really advanced system for transforming a planet it could be the Serenity system. Its no less proposterous than anything else we've seen in sci-fi, or on the show.

At least thats how i figure it. I dont mean traditional 'real' terraforming i mean something like the Genesis device, shoot it at a planet and a few months later you have a mini-Earth That Was. That kind of thing.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2005-10-03 01:29pm

Ghetto Edit: I dont mean our system is their star system, i was using that as an example, just to be clear.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-03 01:29pm

Because it's too many planets, you dimwit.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-10-03 01:29pm

CDiehl wrote:I don't mind the one-system idea, but there don't have to be hundreds of Earthlike bodies. They could just get lucky and find a system with two planets at the proper distance to be terraformed into Earthlike planets, and the proper size to have Earthlike gravity. The show could easily take place in less built up areas of those planets. It's not like the show ever showed more than a small part of any one planet. If they're bound and determined to have the main characters fly around, the frontier could be sparsely inhabited planets, moons and asteroids with small communites of humans in domes and/or living underground.

This idea runs counter to much of what is illustrated throughout the series, and is completely opposite of what is said in the movies.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-10-03 01:31pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:Why not just assume they have advanced terraforming and just landed, terraformed the planets, and viola.

I mean, it doesnt even need to be a binary. There are scores of moons and planets in our star system, assuming some really advanced system for transforming a planet it could be the Serenity system. Its no less proposterous than anything else we've seen in sci-fi, or on the show.

At least thats how i figure it. I dont mean traditional 'real' terraforming i mean something like the Genesis device, shoot it at a planet and a few months later you have a mini-Earth That Was. That kind of thing.

Because you can make the atmosphere all happy as much as you want, but that won't change the solar radiation hitting the planet for warmth (except if you make the atmosphere somewhat 'greenhouse' as mentioned earlier in the thread).

So, is the consensus that this sort of system is possible, then?

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2005-10-03 01:32pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Because it's too many planets, you dimwit.

Would it be too much to ask to explain how so?

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2005-10-03 01:34pm

McC: Ok i see. Couldnt they have some kind of field to protect against solar radiation, though? I mean, like a low-level forcefield.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-03 01:36pm

McC explains it perfectly.

There's also the fact that, in regards to your example, the majority of the moons in the Solar System are tiny useless rocks; captured asteroids, formative remnants and the like. You can try and terrorform then until you piss blood but it won't be for shit.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-10-03 01:36pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:McC: Ok i see. Couldnt they have some kind of field to protect against solar radiation, though? I mean, like a low-level forcefield.

'cause there are so many forcefields in the Firefly 'verse.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2005-10-03 01:45pm

While we're racking our brains on this, did Joss Whedon ever weigh in on it? I mean like those comentaries on some DVDs or something? I imagine he must have mentioned it somewhere...maybe it was already explained.

Otherwise the only two idea i could think of is some kind of artificial system or some kind of anomoly star system with a huge number of habitable zones.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-03 01:52pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:Otherwise the only two idea i could think of is some kind of artificial system or some kind of anomoly star system with a huge number of habitable zones.

Or maybe it's a bi or trinary system.

You can't have multiple habitable zones, by the way. That's just impossible and absurd: Habitable zones are determined by the distance from a star and the stellar class.