Rationalizing a Firefly - Serenity type setting

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There's no physics that says it can't work, though, either.

Thus ''looks like."




One thing to say in favor of your model/approach is this:

The setting already has gravitic tech. That's used instead of spin or acceleration simulated gravity vessels and space stations, or so it seems. And IIRC, the actual drive system of the Firefly-class vessel works through gravity manipulation. It also seems that the terraforming uses gravtics. And wasn't there an episode in which some sort of invisible gravity "clamp" grounded the Serenity?


If one's going to use gravitic miracle tech, I'd mine that vein for various applications, rather than toss in a lot of other stuff.

• Grav ripple comms
  
• Grav on vessels for in system travel/slower STL
  
• contragrav air cars
  
• grav assisted terraforming
  
• your fast grav STL

I suppose they cannot micronize this tech, as we don't see it used in things like hand weapons or personal protection.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Thus ''looks like."

Doesn't that mean the opposite?

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Doesn't that mean the opposite?

No.

A pseudo velocity gravitic warp drive?

That's more plausible than the super system?

The super system orbital mechanics can be made to work with current understanding of physics, yes?

Of course it would be artificial/designed on purpose by an intelligence.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

No.

A pseudo velocity gravitic warp drive?

That's more plausible than the super system?

It's more plausible than FTL.

The super system orbital mechanics can be made to work with current understanding of physics, yes?

Sure, but why?

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It's more plausible than FTL.

Sure, but why?

Oh, I agree that it's more plausible than FTL.

Is it more plausible than an intelligent design super system?

Not really, except for one thing. The setting already has gravitic tech. That's a very strong argument in favor of your preferred warp+ cluster approach, if gravitics are already part of the deal.

If I were, like the OP, designing a new setting with some ideas drawn from Firefly, I would not include gravitics. I'd use slow ships from Earth, terraforming that wasn't so perfect, and a miraculous super system.


That would end up looking rather different. Sort of a Terradyne thing, or I guess a bit like what Astro started with his Twelve Dancing Sisters.

[mindstalk]

We can't detect Earth-like planets, let alone supertech-compressible moons, so I don't get this "if the verse existed within 100 light years we'd have found it already." Have we even looked that closely at all the systems within 100 light years?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by mindstalk

We can't detect Earth-like planets, let alone supertech-compressible moons, so I don't get this "if the verse existed within 100 light years we'd have found it already." Have we even looked that closely at all the systems within 100 light years?

We've looked closely enough to notice five main sequence stars including...somehow...a blue giant in a quintuple solar system.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

[*]contragrav air cars

"Heart of Gold" has a hovercraft / speeder kind of vehicle. You could say that works on contragrav.

All this gravitic tech certainly would make it easier to rearrange a system (or several) into a super-system :)

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

"Heart of Gold" has a hovercraft / speeder kind of vehicle. You could say that works on contragrav.

All this gravitic tech certainly would make it easier to rearrange a system (or several) into a super-system :)

Yeah..

It doesn't seem that the tech in FF is quite up to rearranging all those planets and moons, though. Altering them, yes.
But as presented, the 'Verse was already arranged in such a fashion that many planets and moons existed within the so-called habitable zone. It was like that when the humans found it.


Now, for a new FF-inspired setting, the humans could have juggled and reset all those orbits, re-engineering the entire system. But consider what that says about the tech level and resources of the civilization....

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying I would not do it.

YMMV

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

We've looked closely enough to notice five main sequence stars including...somehow...a blue giant in a quintuple solar system.

I believe we can rule out blue giants within 100 ly altogether. On ay sort of stellar timescale blue giants pop like popcorn (10 million years). They just aren't packed together like popcorn.