Firefly: One system or several? [Minor Spoilers]

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-11-04 06:43pm

I found this in the Serenity Visual Companion, p. 117:

It seems to suggest several systems with several suns...?

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2005-11-04 06:47pm

From a person who's never seen Firefly, it appears to. That system would be hellish to stabilize short of divine intervention if that diagram isn't the most stylized map short of the Pre-Copernican Age...

Xess · Post by **Xess** » 2005-11-04 06:52pm

It does look to me to suggest several systems. It looks to be a very stylized map like those ones in National Geographic.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-11-04 06:54pm

I was under the impression that the Firefly system had three suns, but was still a single, absolutely massive system. And since Miranda is, according to that picture, larger than all three of the suns put together, I'd say it is somewhat stylised.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2005-11-04 07:04pm

Seven suns with no orbit indicators in a thing where they are al ringed by blue lines indicting planetary orbit rather does seem to suggest that the Firefly system is not a .... Septary?

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2005-11-04 07:06pm

It could be 'larger' in perspective. In a three-d perspective, it might be a close up, or something.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2005-11-04 07:17pm

I think they're just trying to get across that "Yeah, there are 7 different systems that people deal with. The map with them clustered like that is just an easy way of displaying it.

Out of curiousity as I can't quite remember. Don't they mention somewhere that Earth is one of the planets? It is set 500 or so years into our future isn't it?

Xess · Post by **Xess** » 2005-11-04 07:20pm

Captain Cyran wrote:Out of curiousity as I can't quite remember. Don't they mention somewhere that Earth is one of the planets? It is set 500 or so years into our future isn't it?

They keep reffering to Earth as "Earth That Was", which suggests that Earth is no longer inhabited or even inhabital.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-11-04 07:25pm

As far as I know, Earth and the Solar system are completely abandoned at this point.

Tokaji Kyoden · Post by **Tokaji Kyoden** » 2005-11-04 07:34pm

They never really do explain what happened to earth nor why they abandoned it...

it'd be an interesting side story for another movie or tv series.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-11-04 08:35pm

I flipped through that book last week, and IIRC, there's a frame from the film on the opposite page which shows that that map actually appeared in the film.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-11-04 08:58pm

On Serenity's navigation screen thing, right? *Glances at lack of spoiler warning* When River breaks out and finds Miranda.

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2005-11-04 09:11pm

Maybe it would be a Seven Star (proper term would be nice) System. I was thinking that Multi Star Solar System would be the only way to discribe Joss's insane thirty or fourty Terraformable worlds in a system squeme.

Zor

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-11-04 09:50pm

Pcm979 wrote:On Serenity's navigation screen thing, right? *Glances at lack of spoiler warning* When River breaks out and finds Miranda.

Uh, my bad.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-11-04 09:57pm

Pcm979 wrote:On Serenity's navigation screen thing, right? *Glances at lack of spoiler warning* When River breaks out and finds Miranda.

Yes, I believe so. I haven't seen the film, but since Dalton has and has the book, he can probably provide additional confirmation.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-11-04 10:04pm

I do recall seeing this screen, yes.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-04 10:10pm

It looks like 4 star systems (some of which appear to be binary, or have very nearby stars) with one which they all intersect, or are very close to. Maybe those lines indiciate stellar objects which orbit each other or something?

That's a pretty crazy region of space right there...

namdoolb · Post by **namdoolb** » 2005-11-05 12:03am

Well, right at the start of the film you get the line "earth that was could no longer sustain our numbers"

So my guess is it's a bit like the starcraft situation...

Earth is still out there, it's still populated, and it's probably a hell of a lot more advanced than the systems we see in Firefly. But... it's a hell of a long way away and people don't have any contact with it.

Tychu · Post by **Tychu** » 2005-11-05 12:20am

i dont think its astronomically or physically possible to have more than 2 stars in a system. Im pretty sure a binary system is the limit.

For this to be remotely possible all the stars would have to have the same mass and gravitational pull, roughly the same age.

The planets would not stand a chance at supporting life

If the stars formed naturally (not having super uber tech aliens create the system like Corellia or move blackholes The Maw)
If the stars formed naturally the planets could never form. Those stars will suck up any "dust" and rocks before they can collapse on themselvs and create planets

Tychu · Post by **Tychu** » 2005-11-05 12:22am

oh and to answer that Miranda question

it looks like Miranda might in fact be in that system on the bottom right with the red star, theres a planet with the same color, thats big compared to the others of the system and it has an odd Pluto like Orbit

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2005-11-05 10:32am

Tychu wrote:i dont think its astronomically or physically possible to have more than 2 stars in a system. Im pretty sure a binary system is the limit.

For this to be remotely possible all the stars would have to have the same mass and gravitational pull, roughly the same age.

The planets would not stand a chance at supporting life

If the stars formed naturally (not having super uber tech aliens create the system like Corellia or move blackholes The Maw)
If the stars formed naturally the planets could never form. Those stars will suck up any "dust" and rocks before they can collapse on themselvs and create planets

Trinary systems have been detected, as have multiple star systems. In fact, our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri is potentially trinary (and at the very least, binary). Also, Gamma Velorum is a 6+ star system. However, having so many stars in a system probably precludes the possiblity of having habital planets.

frogcurry · Post by **frogcurry** » 2005-11-05 12:55pm

Just because they are coloured circles does not mean they are stars...

Its possible one or more are gas giants, in a Yavin-4 style inhabitable moon idea. This would also put the planets very close by normal standards in these clusters around the gas giants, explaining the very short distances between worlds in Firefly/ Serenity.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-11-05 05:18pm

frogcurry wrote:Just because they are coloured circles does not mean they are stars...

Colored circles that are glowing? Not to mention the other gas giants I can spot that don't appear the same - namely, the green and white one on the lower left, and the one that looks akin to Jupiter on the upper left.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2005-11-05 11:29pm

Braedley wrote:
Tychu wrote:i dont think its astronomically or physically possible to have more than 2 stars in a system. Im pretty sure a binary system is the limit.

For this to be remotely possible all the stars would have to have the same mass and gravitational pull, roughly the same age.

The planets would not stand a chance at supporting life

If the stars formed naturally (not having super uber tech aliens create the system like Corellia or move blackholes The Maw)
If the stars formed naturally the planets could never form. Those stars will suck up any "dust" and rocks before they can collapse on themselvs and create planets
Trinary systems have been detected, as have multiple star systems. In fact, our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri is potentially trinary (and at the very least, binary). Also, Gamma Velorum is a 6+ star system. However, having so many stars in a system probably precludes the possiblity of having habital planets.

Sure you can have a lot more than binary, but AFAIK they're always made up of extremely close binaries (~mercury orbit) that are huge distances away from each other, which doesn't really solve the Firefly System Problem (tm).

Dalton wrote:
frogcurry wrote:Just because they are coloured circles does not mean they are stars...
Colored circles that are glowing? Not to mention the other gas giants I can spot that don't appear the same - namely, the green and white one on the lower left, and the one that looks akin to Jupiter on the upper left.

I'm no astronomer, but what about the possibility of hot heavy Jupiters, more like brown dwarfs than actual normal stars?

Other people must have thought of this before, but such tiny dim stars in a single system might not need to be in the conventional life zone for 'moons' around them to be habitable, so you could scatter them across a big system (with a very heavy central star?) without the orbits being all crammed in and unstable.

Perhaps very small, light, yet hot 'star-planets' can explain the yellowish suns seen from the planets in the series, while retaining the nice idea that the Blue Sun Corporation is named after the main star being a big-life-zone blue giant.

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2005-11-06 06:23am

Somewhat off-topic, but was anyone else disappointed by the lack of decent stills of the Operative's cruiser in the Visual Companion?