Good, geeky fun :)

zeitgeist | September 20, 19:56 CET

Put me on the short bus, 'cos that article made my brain hurt.

Pretty cool stuff, actually, but beyond my pitiful ken.

Chris inVirginia | September 20, 19:57 CET

Hehe, excellent.

Paul_Rocks | September 20, 20:17 CET

Whoa

Apocalypse | September 20, 20:58 CET

Yes, geeky fun, but that Titius-Bode law for planet spacing is already under fire, and not likely to hold up as a generalization for planet spacing. When we started finding extra-solar planets, the first ones we found were many times the size of Jupiter, and orbiting so close to their stars that they completed a "year" in about three Earth days or so.

We do know a few things at this point, besides the fact that our planet searching capability is currently not sophisticated enough to find a solar system like ours, let alone an Earth-like planet. (Estimates are that we're about 10 years away from this.)

However, we do know that gas giant planets tend to sweep a lot of interplanetary trash (asteroids, comets, etc.) out of a solar system, either by collision or by gravitational slingshot throwing the trash out into interstellar space. As a result of this, the gas giant planet loses energy, and its orbit shrinks. This process seems to stop when there's a stable point where the planet isn't picking up trash any more.

We're also fairly sure that gas giants tend to form in the outer part of a planetary system, while rocky planets will be found more toward the inner region.

In the case of our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn cleaned up most of space outside the asteroid belt and inside the Kuiper belt, along with almost everything in eccentric orbits. The process stopped before Jupiter slowed down enough to clean out our asteroid belt. If Jupiter had continued cleaning up asteroids, its orbit might have moved closer to the sun, and possibly close enough to interfere with Mars or even Earth.

The gas giant clean-up process, by the way, is essential for life. Life couldn't have formed on Earth until the bombardment of asteroids and comets slowed down enough for a stable ecosystem to form. So we should be thankful that Jupiter is as small as it is, as well as being thankful that it's as big as it is. (i.e., Goldilocks should be thankful that someone made that bed just right.)

Yeah, I just went off on a fit of geekiness. My explanations for the Firefly 'verse?

1. Hand-waving. This is soft SF anyway, so the underlying science doesn't have to actually, like, you know, work.

2. Faster than light travel. Which is a variation of option 1, really.

MissKittysMom | September 20, 21:00 CET

1. Hand-waving. This is soft SF anyway, so the underlying science doesn't have to actually, like, you know, work.
2. Faster than light travel. Which is a variation of option 1, really.

Joss has already said there's no FTL, so basically it's just regular hand-waving ;)

Grounded | September 20, 21:04 CET

Wow. That was WAY over my head.

socks | September 20, 21:13 CET

Thanks MKM! I do have to say that Joss's antipathy towards math & science bugs me. There was just a good article about the dumbing down of science coverage. I liked this part especially:



But back to topic. Two points:

1. NASA's database of extrasolar planets - 154 so far. They haven't named any yet but perhaps we can make some suggestions.
   
2. What about where the Reavers live... the "edge of space" or "edge of the galaxy" (often used interchangeably). I've been trying to fanwank that one with no success...
   

gingeriffic | September 20, 21:19 CET

FTL would have been a much more elegant rationale. I have to ignore the uber-system idea because it makes no sense at all, no matter how far you stretch Titius-Bode.

Luckily, Joss spends all of two seconds on the subject. So, I'm free to ignore it and focus on the BDHs.

Shakespeare | September 20, 21:24 CET

Has anyone actually tried to count all the planets mentioned in Firefly and Serenity? Because I would guess the total is closer to 20-30 than 100.

Also, does anyone with better scientific knowledge than I know if a wonky solar system with (say) dozens of planets in the Goldlicks zone is *that* much more implausible than FTL travel?

I guess you *can* ignore the fact that everything takes place in one system, but I like the relative "closeness" of everything, plus the fact that all of the settlers had to cross over in generation starships and cannot return to Earth-That-Was. I think that is much more in the spirit of the Firefly/Serenity universe, plausible or not.

bobothebrave | September 20, 21:37 CET

I'm at the lab so I can't tell you the number right this second, but there's a graphic including all of the 'verse planets in the Official Visual Companion.

Serefina716 | September 20, 21:44 CET

In the Serenity visual companion, there's like a photo list of all of the moons/planets. All of the places that were mentioned in the series and the movie are there, as well as a dozen or so extra. There's around 40 total.

About the "Reavers at the edge of space thing," well, that's something the movie might clear up a bit.

lalaa | September 20, 21:52 CET

It's pretty much implausible (less so than FTL, but not by much).

Our solar system might very well have formed that way, but with that much traffic in a narrow orbital band, there would be collisions. Big, spectacular, planet-destroying collisions. Folks who study this are pretty sure that Earth was involved in at least one of those, with a roughly Mars-sized planet. (Our moon is probably the result of that collision, but not a remnant of that other planet.)

Keep in mind that theories of solar system formation are being trashed every day by new discoveries. Some things will get ruled out faster than others, but if this is the kind of thing that gets you hot, planetary science is going to be very interesting for the next few decades.

MissKittysMom | September 20, 22:06 CET

<span class="whine">But some of us liiiiike those obscure Russian novelists!</span> And obscure Russian composers, too.

But those French philosophers can go hang. Who needs them, anyway? A bunch of wet-blanket know-nothings, they are.

MissKittysMom | September 20, 22:12 CET

You forgot the other tenet of Sci-Fi psuedo-science: TERRAFORMING. It solves all ills.

Anusien | September 20, 22:48 CET

Oh, one other thing about those Goldilocks zones. They move as stars get older. Earth will be out of the Goldilocks zone in about another billion years.

Make your plans to evacuate now.

MissKittysMom | September 20, 23:07 CET

We did try to have a panel at Worldcon this year to look at the science behind Firefly. Nobody was keen to try as the astrophysics of the Firefly planetary system is as unusual as River's psychology.

The key problem is to find a star with a habitable zone (aka Goldilocks Zone) big enough to hold that many planets. Roughly speaking that's the zone where you are far enough away from the star for ice to melt but not far enough for water to boil all the time.

If we look at some of the zones for different types of star here then it looks as though the only possibility is a supergiant star.

These tend to be blue stars, which fits in with the 'Blue Sun' company name. Massive stars like this are also short lived, too short lived for life to have evolved around them, which fits in with 'no aliens'.

The problem is that there are few of these stars and even the nearest is about 500 light years away. There would probably have been many 'normal' solar systems much closer too us. This leaves us with the question of why the Exodus from Earth went to such a strange place so far away.

The only suggestions I can think of are;

1) There are far less 'normal' Solar systems than we currently believe (theories on this are still changing rapidly).

2) Any such solar system did evolve alien life and the Firefly system was the nearest unoccupied real estate.

technovamp | September 20, 23:07 CET

In that other article linked today Joss talked about fan wanking. Yeah I think this link qualifies for that, no? I dislike when people talk about the science of Firefly. Its not important to me. I leave all of that technobabble to the Trekkies.

eddy | September 20, 23:17 CET

Eddy - obviously, this is a relatively minor element of the movie, but for someone enjoys visiting the other worlds that science fiction writers create, it's fun to figure out the details. When Joss created Firefly, he didn't just create nine characters and a ship, he created a whole universe, yeah?

Internal consistency is more important to me than scientific rigor, but I do get annoyed with films that show a total disregard for a how the universe works (see Star Trek, Star Wars), especially since that sort of carelessness tends to slip over into other areas of storytelling.

Articles like this are a lot like Joss' "History of the Galaxy" in the Visual Companion -- not absolutely necessary, but still a lot of fun, and useful insomuch as they deepen my understanding of the Serenity universe and make it seem more real.

bobothebrave | September 20, 23:39 CET

The completely unimportant question is how the refugees of 'Earth that was' got halfway across the galaxy to this uber-system in the 500 years between now and Firefly without FTL drives?


Wise words.

Shakespeare | September 20, 23:47 CET

Yup. Hard science fiction is an oxymoron.

Jossverse stories are about people. Next planet, next town down the highway, next sewer over from the cemetery, makes no difference.

MissKittysMom | September 21, 00:04 CET

Nah. 'Soft' science fiction is retarded, in literal sense, as opposite of progressive. Without plausible world it is difficult to give plausible explanations how and why social things are different, and so soft scifi most often relies on giving all-the-same, all-the-same iconic figures and recycled history. For me that is not satisfying - the interesting part is that which is new and different. If fanwankery can solve the contradictions of Firefly's non-FTL travel and tens of planets, better for the 'verse. Psychological plausibility of characters is, afterall, rooted to the world they are living in, and fails if it fails. For me Joss's best inventions have been fleshing out (auteurwanking) and naturalizing the world of vampires, demons and slayers: Caritas, demon bars, hell dimensions and Wolfram and Hart. Characters relate to these things - these are not insignificant.

futile | September 21, 01:28 CET

Not to get even geekier, but soft science fiction is not the same as scientifically inaccurate science fiction, but rather SF where the focus is either more on characters/emotion, or on the "soft" sciences (history, sociology, psychology, etc.) Relevant wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction.

There's plenty of soft science fiction that is still presents worlds that are radically unlike our own -- just about anything by Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick spring to mind.

I'd argue that Firefly and Serenity are soft science fiction -- there are some nods towards scientific accuracy, but that's clearly not the heart of the story.

(That said, I agree with futile's larger point -- characters exist in/are shaped by specific settings. As self-deprecating as Joss likes to be when science comes up, his work shows a definite awareness of this.)

[ edited by bobothebrave on 2005-09-21 00:36 ]

bobothebrave | September 21, 02:27 CET

If fanwankery can solve the contradictions of Firefly's non-FTL travel and tens of planets, better for the 'verse. Psychological plausibility of characters is, afterall, rooted to the world they are living in

Which is why I much prefer the scientifically more implausible explanation of a giant planetary system over FTL -- purely internal consistency. There's just no way Serenity would have FTL if it existed in the FF universe. Serenity is the equivalent of a 13-year old Toyota pick-up: junky, held together with love, full of personality, but no way possessing the kind of power and speed that could match an Alliance cruiser. It can't run or fight -- it's a cargo/transport ship and kinda dinky. FTL is just too shiny and expensive and scientifically advanced for Serenity; heck, the engine of the ship is a motor that turns round and round.

dottikin | September 21, 03:15 CET

Which in no way explains how a spaceship could go anywhere.

Which in turn invoke's Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. As long as it's magic, it might as well be FTL.

Or not.

However, in a single solar system, using anything like technology that we know, there is no way to explain how they consistently get from one world to another in a matter of days. Ain't gonna happen without hand-waving.

Actually, my perception of Joss's scientific accuracy isn't so much that he's accurate, or not, but more that he's very genre and cliché aware, and chooses which clichés he's not going to bust, as well as ones he is going to bust. Where he doesn't want to attract attention, he goes "by the book"; the easiest way to avoid attracting attention to certain aspects of his science fiction is to stay well within genre norms.

It was much the same with Buffy's fights. By and large, the action in Buffy was well-done but often very predictable. Sometimes there were gentle pokes, like Giles sipping tea on a bench while Buffy fights in a cemetery, or they were hugely unsubtle genre busts, like Buffy getting staked in Fool For Love. Either way, the deviations from genre standard were always clearly deliberate.

MissKittysMom | September 21, 03:41 CET

It is almost certain that a science fiction story can never predict the science of the future. However it can and should use scientific methods to extrapolate what the effects of a 'guessed' future technology might be.

I've read several very good stories that were set in magical universes but where the characters used scientific methods to deduce the laws of that universe.

I forget which writer said it but I like the quote which says that a well designed universe is as important a character in a story as any of the humans.

'Lost' is a good example of the reverse. It is an excellent show but there are no established rules to their universe. That is starting to remove any enjoyment in trying to figure out what is going on. It's just like having a main protagonist who keeps acting out of character just to advance the plot.

technovamp | September 21, 04:08 CET

Excellent comparison, MissKittysMom. The fight scenes are, for the most part, the one thing in BtVS that gets stale on rewatching except for where, as you note, they're tweaking the genre. And for the really exceptional scraps, such as Graduation Day Part One. But I was never the biggest fight scene fan. (And I'm still really bothered by the number of times a vamp/demon picks Buffy up and throws her - like she's never seen that coming before . . . )

For everyone's sake, I'll refrain from displaying my ignorance in the science debate. :)

SoddingNancyTribe | September 21, 04:09 CET

This is the one thing I keep hearing about Lost that keeps me from getting involved in it. I quit watching Alias because of this, and because Lost is J. J. Abrams again, I'm wary.

MissKittysMom | September 21, 04:41 CET

I'm not much on that fancy book learnin' y'all are throwing around in this debate, but I just had to drop a couple of cent's worth...

First off, has anyone here listened to the Signal podcast that featured the "Science of Firefly" segment? One of the biggest issues they tackled with that was the lack of FTL in the 'verse. They offerered a few explanations of how the 'verse could possibly have come to be without having to ignore Einstein. I don't remember all of it, but among other things they discussed the fact that time is relative to speed, so that the oft-quoted "500 years" wouldn't necessarily have to be 500 earth-relative years from today's date. The Firefly/Serenity 'verse could be operating on a completely different calendar based on the relative time it took to make the journey from Earth-That-Was. Which of course means that there could be more than just 500 years in which to accomplish things like terraforming and colonization, etc.

Or something like that.

Anyways, I also have to say to MKM that Lost shouldn't be criticized for not having any established rules because (a) that's not entirely true, and (b) part of the mystery of the show is the mystery of WHY the rules on the island seem different than the rules the survivors expect. It's not sloppy or indifferent writing, it's an intentional and important part of the story itself.

Haunt | September 21, 22:16 CET