Firefly

[tjoneslo]

I loved the show. But someone's (like Joss) has been watching too much Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star anime. I must say I like the large cast, Joss seems to do better when there are more people around. (Yea, I'm a big Buffy fan too...).

The "Girl in a box" line from the promo's is from the two hour pilot, to be shown in December because the suits didn't think it had enough action (The pilot, not this episode).

 

[Nearside]

The hundreds of worlds thing is worrying. I mean, our solar system has over a hundred distinct worlds (moons, planets etc) but you know how many of them can support life- 1.

Even with the terraforming that was mentioned, I have my doubts...

 

[Uncle Bob]

At the end the Alliance policeman says something like, "I didn't come 85 million miles to talk about a train robbery." (less than 1 AU?)

That kind of blows away any effort to rationalize the Firefly Universe. I'll enjoy it while it lasts but with that kind of sloppy attention to detail they may become a dusty Voyager.

 

[Nearside]

I was thinking some more about this. Maybe it's a large star system, a trinary or four star group, with multiple habitable zones and many moons.

Maybe.

 

[chron187]

At the end the Alliance policeman says something like, "I didn't come 85 million miles to talk about a train robbery." (less than 1 AU?)

That kind of blows away any effort to rationalize the Firefly Universe. I'll enjoy it while it lasts but with that kind of sloppy attention to detail they may become a dusty Voyager

Errr I can rationalize gross in attention to figure of speech

 

[Gaming Glen]

Could he have come from a space or moon station? Maybe the 85M is a Lagrange point? (how far are the Earth's?)

85M might not seem like much when compared to an entire solar system, but if he hates travelling any distance is too far.

Maybe 85M is the total distance he had to go before the ship could engage the "jump" drive and how far after jump to arrive? (that 100 diameters thing, the actual jump didn't matter)

just offering some hope against the implications..
Glen

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by Gaming Glen:
Could he have come from a space or moon station? Maybe the 85M is a Lagrange point? (how far are the Earth's?)

The Lagrange points are about 250,000 miles. But the Earth's Trojan points are 93,000,000 miles (Equilateral triangle with the sun).

85,000,000 miles (miles? MILES? with a rising note of hysteria) seems like a lot to us, but in an interstellar culture it make as much sense as, "I didn't take a cab three blocks to talk about...)

For a while there I thought the "train" would be some kind of FTL mothership, which would make the robbery real interesting.

Imagine my dissapointment when I saw the monorail. If you can, you have already showed more imagination than the writing staff.

I intend to keep watching, but I have no illusions.

 

[vegascat]

They did show some creativity it some of the details, but other details leave too many questions.

The bar window was great, easy to get thrown through without breaking.

Had to wonder why the engine didn't FOD out when the bad guy went through it. It did make a point though.

Over all it shows promise. Will it live up to it?

 

[Swordsage]

I'm curious as to what a "respectable companion" really is.

A companion might be Firefly's equivelant to the geisha in Japanesse culture. Considering some of the oriental tones filtered throughout the episode this might not be too much of a stretch.

 

[lord irial]

Originally posted by Bruce:
It's more 'pants' than Enterprise...

Pants? Huh?

Is that better or worse than kilts?

 

[siefertma2]

Originally posted by Swordsage:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I'm curious as to what a "respectable companion" really is.

A companion might be Firefly's equivelant to the geisha in Japanesse culture. Considering some of the oriental tones filtered throughout the episode this might not be too much of a stretch.</font>[/QUOTE]It's a commonly held western misconception that geisha were prostitutes. From what I've read, their primary duties were as artists and performers who would entertain Japanese nobility and upper class. Sex would sometimes occur between a geisha and her patron, but I don't believe it was required.

The closest that Inara comes to is a Renaissance-Baroque period courtesan. Courtesans actually had it much better than most "working girls"--indeed most women--of their time. Courtesans were usually highly educated, could own property, and could expect to live a rather comfortable life.

Later,
Mark A. Siefert

 

[T. Foster]

Dammit, forgot to tape this (as I figured I probably would). Was hoping to come on here and find out it blew chunks, but, alas, everybody loved it. Oh well, guess I'll have to scrounge around for blank VHS tapes after all.

Still not all that sorry I missed it, though, as I got to see Scarlet Diva instead -- nothing at all to do with Traveller this was such a crazy beautiful f**ed up brilliant movie that I just have to share my enthusiasm! Asia Argento is the new Abel Ferrara!

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:

85,000,000 miles (miles? MILES? with a rising note of hysteria) seems like a lot to us, but in an interstellar culture it make as much sense as, "I didn't take a cab three blocks to talk about...)

For a while there I thought the "train" would be some kind of FTL mothership, which would make the robbery real interesting.

Imagine my dissapointment when I saw the monorail. If you can, you have already showed more imagination than the writing staff.

I intend to keep watching, but I have no illusions.

I caught that as well. The train didn't bother me as much as the distances thing tho... I guess I'm going to keep the jury out on that particular verdict until I've seen more shows.

As a side note, the web page for Firefly indicates that the Alliance controls most of the galaxy. That indicates to me that we're not talking about a single solar system here. For now, I'm chalking up the 85M miles up to the same sort thing that produced "the kessel run in less than n parsecs" line from Star Wars.

It was nice to see a new SciFi show with 3d characters for once. No Cmdr Data to figure out some new theory of the universe in time to save the ship... no Cpt Kirk to soap box the Federation... just a crew and a rust bucket old ship, and a captain with a reasonable (and believable) conscience.

All things considered, I was quite pleased with the show. I just hope that they let it live long enough to develop a following and work out the bugs.

 

[RabidVargr]

"Put down your weapons and return inside before I blow another crater in this worthless rock."

Awesome!

RV

 

[Swordsage]

It's a commonly held western misconception that geisha were prostitutes. From what I've read, their primary duties were as artists and performers who would entertain Japanese nobility and upper class. Sex would sometimes occur between a geisha and her patron, but I don't believe it was required.

The closest that Inara comes to is a Renaissance-Baroque period courtesan. Courtesans actually had it much better than most "working girls"--indeed most women--of their time. Courtesans were usually highly educated, could own property, and could expect to live a rather comfortable life.

Very true. the only reason that I made the connection between Inara and Geisha was because of the respect that she was being shown. But you're right the role of courtesan does seem to be a better fit.

 

[Bishop]

Two things...

1) I find it best to leave my Physics mind in neutral when watching TV Sci-Fi. That way I'm on the same page as the writers...

2) As far as the ST armor for the soldiers...You will probably be seeing it again and again, since they made so much of it, they're probably selling it cheap and trying to recoup the loss. I remember seeing somewhere else already, but I don't recall where.

T.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

All through it we just kept sitting and muttering "It's Traveller!" like a mantra and later my players kept pointing out things that could, would, or did happen in our own adventures. Too cool ^_^

The 85 million mile thing. He has to be talking about in system distances...they got everything right so something like that I doubt they'd screw up on. Travel in system from one side to the other would easily get those distances (my time is short so I won't get into the Kessel run reference now...but that's a separate peeve...I'll explain later ^_^) They show the Serenity going into jump in the credits so it's a safe bet it's not one mega-system.

The alliance armor Did look like ST, but it was also the generic quasi good/bad goverment armor that's been in most shows of late. Looking at it I didn't immediately go 'oh, starship troopers' I went 'ok, those are the 'Establishment' guys'.

I liked the guns the crew was using. Low penetrating slug throwers (shotguns, etc.) like any respectible crew would carry who didn't want to put holes in thier own ship

I think the engine would be ok after using the Henchman™ brand Turbine Grease

A normal jet engine gets chewed up true, but it also doesn't have regularly survive reentry, micrometeorites, dust clouds, sand storms, and who knows what else a Travelling ship will come across. Besides, the effect on the OTHER thugs was worth the overtime pay the cute engineer was going to be making after that <G>

Btw, I heard a bad rumor about the pilot. Yes the 2 hour pilot will be shown in december, but they're going to butcher it down to a normal 1 hour episode.....

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
... For now, I'm chalking up the 85M miles up to the same sort thing that produced "the kessel run in less than n parsecs" line from Star Wars. /QUOTE]

Ok, I'm at the office now so forgive me an off topic rant, but as I said this was a peeve of mine

When Star Wars first came out the 'less then 12 parsecs' line was to show that Solo was the kind of flamboyant hard bitten freighter captain who didn't have that much schooling. He knew his job and how to fly a ship like nobody's business but he didn't have the education to get his terms right. At the time he was talking about how fast his ship was. He meant to use a unit of time, but since he didn't know any better he used a unit of distance. When he said it you could see Kenobi get a 'this guy has no idea what he's talking about' look on his face.

It was the people in the game industry who overlooked that fact and justified it with that nonsense about it being such a dangerous route and such. He didn't bring up the run to talk about how good a flier and maneuverable his ship was. It was how short a time he got somewhere.

Ok I'm done. Forgive my rant-infused tangent

We will now continue with our scheduled progam ^_^

 

[Maspy]

Originally posted by N.I.C.E. Labs:
[QB]

Ok, I'm at the office now so forgive me an off topic rant, but as I said this was a peeve of mine. When Star Wars first came out the 'less then 12 parsecs' line was to show that Solo was the kind of flamboyant hard bitten freighter captain who didn't have that much schooling. He knew his job and how to fly a ship like nobody's business but he didn't have the education to get his terms right. At the time he was talking about how fast his ship was. He meant to use a unit of time, but since he didn't know any better he used a unit of distance. When he said it you could see Kenobi get a 'this guy has no idea what he's talking about' look on his face.

QB]

Forgive my continuing of the tangent conversation, but I gotta go the distance for the man-Mr. Solo.
I would tend to go with the theory that Lucas mistook parsec for a measure of time, not Han, his character.
Solo was a decorated cadet at the Corellian Military Academy. That wouldn't fit the 'uneducated fly-boy' theory.

 

[Uncle Bob]

I too think George bobbeled the terminology.

But it was suggested somwhere that the Kessel run required threading your way through a complex series of obstacles and only the most precise navigation and shiphandling could take advantage of the smallest shortcuts. Thus Solo was not just bragging about his ship but also about his own skill at navigation.

I still think Lucas just goofed. Fixing that one word would almost let me forgive what he did to the Greedo fight.

Remember, Kenobi said, "If his ship is as fast as he boasts we should do well."