Firefly Redux

Since I’m on the topic of Firefly, I should comment about some of the mysteries, mechanics and foibles of it.

It’s possible that the most enduring mystery surrounds Book, and Serenity did nothing to help that; if anything making it forever worse, barring a depiction of events after Firefly and before Serenity, or outside exposition subsequently.  Just this morning I came up with an idea that I’d not had before.  Who says everyone associated with the Alliance government is evil or that the viewpoints of those within it are monolithic?  Thus Book could have some association or history with the Alliance, as an operative or whatnot, yet be associated with good guys, or those opposed to rather than working with the mystery corporation.  Alternatively but similarly, he could be part of a “Foundation” that is within yet apart from the Alliance, and opposed to some of their worst as needed.  The world may never know.  Heck, maybe Joss, Tim, Ben et al never fully thought it out.

The fascinating thing about Firefly is the setting.  It takes care of a major “gimme” generally required in the writing of science fiction, which is how to bridge the distances involved.  Normally you have a star system with an inhabited world or two or three, and you have other systems with other worlds, so travel is largely interstellar.  Thus you need to go four, twenty, even thousands of lightyears in human-friendly timescales, while not necessarily suffering time dilation.

Firefly, while they mention “the galaxy” and, in hyperbolic context, the ‘verse, the setting is one solar system.  There just happen to be vast numbers of earth-like planets, and even vaster numbers of terraformable planets and moons.  We don’t get a lot of explanation as the the technology, and that the locations, however small a “rock,” show no signs of recent terraforming, unusual gravity, or difficulty retaining an atmosphere naturally leads to questions.  Not to mention that the wild west trappings and atmosphere (and shaky outer planet economies) are perfectly reasonable, on one level, but make less sense when placed next to the technology required to have made and maintained most of those worlds as habitable.

My biggest question, though, involves how they got there from here.

So this world goes all to hell, right?  Then… eureka!  Someone discovers this other system with mass quantities of usable planets.  Yay, we’re saved!  But… how did they get there?  And if there was the technology to migrate large swaths of humanity to a new star system, why not interstellar travel?  Why not still other systems in which humanity has settled?  Especially given the available technology for terraforming.  And if you can travel between star systems, why fight the Alliance when you can simply flee?  Not that you should have to be flee or be repressed; in current terms that’s why we have the Second Amendment.

There’s probably more, but I need to go now.  And if you haven’t watched the series or the movie, don’t let nitpicks and questions stop you.  There are always those kinds of things with SF, especially on film or TV.  One more point, though.  There are amusing Star Wars-like glimpses in Firefly, and overall the feel is Heinleinesque, more in some places than others.  You have characters really living to their full potential or joy in life, and not just River and Simon (whom I compared yesterday to Valerie and Sadie, respectively).

Okay, leaving now.  Talk among yourselves while I am gone.

Posted by on 05/06 at 10:26 AM

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