Rationalizing a Firefly - Serenity type setting

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

A couple years from core to edge DOES hurt the setting - badly.

In order to have a significant, protracted war (as the unification war was) you need at most a handful of months across.

The US Civil War was mostly fought along the Mason Dixon line and the Altlantic Seaboard. It mostly wasn't fought on the frontier.