The Map of the 'Verse - Page 2

JuanBolio · November 21 2008, 04:06 AM

I also love maps, and this one is beautiful. Wish they had large-sized images online. Guess you gotta buy it.

RoJoHen · November 21 2008, 04:26 AM

theenglish wrote:

RoJoHen, I have to say that your avatar is really really freaking me out.

Kitty will eat your soul!

Skywalker · November 21 2008, 08:29 AM

Argh! Needs more high-res!

Guess I'll just have to buy the gorram thing.

Neroon · November 21 2008, 12:27 PM

Skywalker wrote:

Argh! Needs more high-res!

Guess I'll just have to buy the gorram thing.

What are you, some kinda Alliance spy?

Reverend · November 22 2008, 10:13 PM

I know it's been a while since I last watched Firefly, but I don't recall noticing any of the planets having more that a single sun. I mean I'm no astrophysicist, but I would've thought that if the stars are really that close then surely at least some of the neighbouring stars would be visible from a given planet, even during that day. Unless of course they just happened to be eclipsed by the local star, gas giant, moon or was only visible from the other side of the planet during every episode where they touched down.

Christopher · November 23 2008, 12:19 AM

^^Well, judging from the scale marks on the planar view, the separations between the major stars are typically on the order of 40-50 AU, which is the distance from the Sun to Neptune or the Oort Cloud. From that distance, a Sunlike star would be just a bright point source, not enough to brighten a night sky significantly or be visible in the daytime sky of a planet lit by a nearer star. The minor suns are apparently red or brown dwarfs, which would only cast daytime illumination if you were much, much closer than 1 AU. So the system layout shown here is compatible with only seeing one sun in the sky of any given world.

Admiral_Young · November 23 2008, 08:32 PM

That looked really remarkable...are those the people who made the excellent Serenity blueprints a couple of years ago? I want that map.

Strider · November 23 2008, 11:05 PM

Bishbot wrote:

Would that work? I'm no physicist so it seemed plausible to me, but I've asked physics students and they seemed to doubt it would be possible.

Even if the star system itself is possible, the sheer number of terraform-able planets is outrageously convenient. For that matter, I'm still curious how the Alliance was able to make the "atmo and gravity close to Earth-that-was" or whatever Zoe said. I mean, altering the atmosphere is one thing, but playing around with the mass or gravity of a planet seems light years ahead of what we saw of Alliance technology. It makes absolutely no sense.

Skywalker · November 23 2008, 11:48 PM

Strider wrote:

Bishbot wrote:

Would that work? I'm no physicist so it seemed plausible to me, but I've asked physics students and they seemed to doubt it would be possible.

Even if the star system itself is possible, the sheer number of terraform-able planets is outrageously convenient. For that matter, I'm still curious how the Alliance was able to make the "atmo and gravity close to Earth-that-was" or whatever Zoe said. I mean, altering the atmosphere is one thing, but playing around with the mass or gravity of a planet seems light years ahead of what we saw of Alliance technology. It makes absolutely no sense.

That would be the fiction part.

Strider · November 24 2008, 01:01 AM

Skywalker wrote:

Strider wrote:

Bishbot wrote:

Would that work? I'm no physicist so it seemed plausible to me, but I've asked physics students and they seemed to doubt it would be possible.

Even if the star system itself is possible, the sheer number of terraform-able planets is outrageously convenient. For that matter, I'm still curious how the Alliance was able to make the "atmo and gravity close to Earth-that-was" or whatever Zoe said. I mean, altering the atmosphere is one thing, but playing around with the mass or gravity of a planet seems light years ahead of what we saw of Alliance technology. It makes absolutely no sense.

That would be the fiction part.

Well yeah. It's an awesome show no doubt about it but the science is a little wonky.

Neroon · November 24 2008, 01:29 AM

The science is a little wonky about every sci-fi show.

Christopher · November 24 2008, 04:24 AM

Admiral_Young wrote:

That looked really remarkable...are those the people who made the excellent Serenity blueprints a couple of years ago? I want that map.

Yes, Quantum Mechanix is the same company that did the blueprints. And the main artist responsible for the map is Geoffrey Mandel, who did graphic designs for the movie Serenity (including the star maps shown in the film, I believe) and who previously did Star Trek Star Charts.

Strider wrote:

For that matter, I'm still curious how the Alliance was able to make the "atmo and gravity close to Earth-that-was" or whatever Zoe said. I mean, altering the atmosphere is one thing, but playing around with the mass or gravity of a planet seems light years ahead of what we saw of Alliance technology. It makes absolutely no sense.

Well, they had artificial gravity on their spaceships, so artificially augmenting a planet's gravity just seems like a larger-scale version of the same technology. So it doesn't seem that inconsistent to me.

Besides, most of the tech we saw was the tech used by poor, struggling settlers on the frontier. We didn't see much of the tech level used by the most advanced, prosperous parts of the civilization. That's one of the great things about FF/S -- it reflected a reality rarely seen in SF, namely that technological advancement is not uniform. Today, we're making all these incredible technological breakthroughs, but there are still hundreds of millions of people who don't even have plumbing.

Strider wrote:

Well yeah. It's an awesome show no doubt about it but the science is a little wonky.

That's being generous. Consistent worldbuilding has never been one of Whedon's strengths. It wasn't until the movie that they even settled on whether the series took place in a single star system or a whole galaxy.

mswood · November 24 2008, 04:54 AM

Is there any visual evidence in the shows FX to showcase that many stars. I would love to check the map (in closeup and then compare it the worlds we saw, and the worlds we saw to see if we should have seen another star in the distance (brighter or larger then the typical pin point of light in fx). Not that I am anal or anything.

Hell I might just rewatch the show starting...now.

Christopher · November 24 2008, 05:26 AM

mswood wrote:

Is there any visual evidence in the shows FX to showcase that many stars.

I very much doubt it, since the idea of the series occurring in a multiple-star system didn't really exist until the movie (and there only in the graphic design). As I said, the show was undecided about whether it spanned a galaxy or a single system. And there were some handwaves in background material about artificial suns around many of the terraformed worlds. So don't expect any kind of cosmological consistency. They were making it up as they went, and this multi-star model is an after-the-fact attempt to rationalize something that was conceptually extremely messy and cavalier.

Mysterion · November 24 2008, 06:12 AM

Robert Maxwell wrote:

I love maps--especially star maps--of fictional universes.

My favorite is this one, for Homeworld.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is that from? Is this from a game or what?

November 21 2008, 04:06 AM	#16
JuanBolio Admiral Location: Florida Keys, USA	Re: The Map of the 'Verse I also love maps, and this one is beautiful. Wish they had large-sized images online. Guess you gotta buy it. __________________ Never fear! JuanBolio wuz here! This has been an official JuanBolio post. You are now stronger, smarter, and a better human being for having read it. Congratulations.

November 21 2008, 08:29 AM	#18
Skywalker Admiral	Re: The Map of the 'Verse Argh! Needs more high-res! Guess I'll just have to buy the gorram thing.

November 22 2008, 10:13 PM	#20
Reverend Rear Admiral Location: UK	Re: The Map of the 'Verse I know it's been a while since I last watched Firefly, but I don't recall noticing any of the planets having more that a single sun. I mean I'm no astrophysicist, but I would've thought that if the stars are really that close then surely at least some of the neighbouring stars would be visible from a given planet, even during that day. Unless of course they just happened to be eclipsed by the local star, gas giant, moon or was only visible from the other side of the planet during every episode where they touched down. __________________ Star Trek Logos - Dark Knight Adventures - DeviantArt Last edited by Reverend; November 22 2008 at 10:33 PM.

November 23 2008, 12:19 AM	#21
Christopher Writer	Re: The Map of the 'Verse ^^Well, judging from the scale marks on the planar view, the separations between the major stars are typically on the order of 40-50 AU, which is the distance from the Sun to Neptune or the Oort Cloud. From that distance, a Sunlike star would be just a bright point source, not enough to brighten a night sky significantly or be visible in the daytime sky of a planet lit by a nearer star. The minor suns are apparently red or brown dwarfs, which would only cast daytime illumination if you were much, much closer than 1 AU. So the system layout shown here is compatible with only seeing one sun in the sky of any given world. __________________ Christopher L. Bennett Homepage -- Updated 5/28/13 with discussion of Rise of the Federation Book 1. Written Worlds -- My blog

November 23 2008, 08:32 PM	#22
Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Location: Metropolis	Re: The Map of the 'Verse That looked really remarkable...are those the people who made the excellent Serenity blueprints a couple of years ago? I want that map. __________________ Admiral Young Chief of Operations Ignoring the The Last Stand since 2011.

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November 24 2008, 01:29 AM	#26
Neroon Memory and awareness Location: On my ship the Rocinante, wheeling thru the galaxy	Re: The Map of the 'Verse The science is a little wonky about every sci-fi show. __________________ “You break through the veil whenever you strap on a sword or chant the ancient verses. You escape when you write a poem or a tale that brings beauty into the world. You are set free whenever you love—even those who believe you’re crazy." ~ Jef Murray, 'Seer: A Wizard's Journal'

November 24 2008, 04:54 AM	#28
mswood Rear Admiral Location: 9th level of Hell	Re: The Map of the 'Verse Is there any visual evidence in the shows FX to showcase that many stars. I would love to check the map (in closeup and then compare it the worlds we saw, and the worlds we saw to see if we should have seen another star in the distance (brighter or larger then the typical pin point of light in fx). Not that I am anal or anything. Hell I might just rewatch the show starting...now. __________________ My fandom will SALT and BURN your fandom!