Rationalizing a Firefly - Serenity type setting

[shawnhcorey]

Originally Posted by thrash

That's not the issue, though. The issue is: how many terraformable worlds can you have in one system?

Nobody knows. Since extrasolar planets have been discovered, all rules about planet formation have been thrown out.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

Nobody knows. Since extrasolar planets have been discovered, all rules about planet formation have been thrown out.

That isn't true and this isn't about planet formation anyway. It's about goldilocks orbits even if the planets have been moved or radically transformed.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

The "all one solar system" stuff only comes in in the film, and stinks of desperate retcon..

Nope. Book's opening monologue from the series:

Originally Posted by Book

"After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying."

[Irish Wolf]

It's still not rational as a single system, not with "hundreds" of planets. I could buy short-hop FTL in, say, a globular cluster, but not one stellar system with more than about five or six terraformable worlds.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

(And I am not even going to try to make sense of the “dozens of planets and hundreds of moons” suitable for terraforming part.)

Given this part of the very first post, I think I'll refrain from further comment about the bizarre planetary arrangement, terraforming, and so on.

I'm not sure if I can give much in the way of useful feedback about things like history, politics, trade, and so on without some understanding of the technology and resources available in the setting, though....

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Given this part of the very first post, I think I'll refrain from further comment about the bizarre planetary arrangement, terraforming, and so on.

I'm not sure if I can give much in the way of useful feedback about things like history, politics, trade, and so on without some understanding of the technology and resources available in the setting, though....

Well they have instant-terraforming super-science but nothing else that would implied by that godlike capability. Other than that, the core is a pretty typical TL 10, while the fringe is schizotech with late 19th century firearms coexisting with lasers, stunners, forcefield windows, maglev monorails, 20th century atvs, horse drawn transport whatever. Primitive locally produced stuff, and really over priced core tech.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The problem of course is that the whole concept of "fringe" versus "core" worlds doesn't make sense in a solar system setting.

If you had a group of stars clustered closely together, let's say about twice as far as the distantance between the sun and Neptune, the larger central star, perhaps with super-Jovian planets whose moons were viable worlds, then core and fringe could make sense.

[shawnhcorey]

Considering what has been seen of extrasolar planets, anything can make sense. All models of planet formation and stability have been invalidated by observations. The 'Verse cannot be considered irrational simply because we do not know what rational is.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

late 19th century firearms

What makes you think the firearms are 19th century designs? Mal's pistol makes a weird whining "power up" kind of noise that certainly doesn't come from a regular revolver. Might just be retro looks, though there's also a large amount of "form follows function" in a pistol.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

The 'Verse cannot be considered irrational simply because we do not know what rational is.

That's untrue. Nothing in recent extrasolar planetology has invalidated orbital mechanics, nor is terraforming a world made primarily out of water ice ever a good idea.

Regardless of how the 'Verse formed, there is only a very narrow range of distances from each star where a world can be considered "habitable," and only so many worlds large enough to retain an atmosphere can orbit in that range. Given this, a 'Verse of five (or so) stars can rationally support maybe a dozen habitable planets and moons -- not more than 70. A 'Verse of more than 70 habitable planets and moons needs dozens of stars -- which is an open cluster, not a star system.