The Map of the 'Verse

[Christopher]

^^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]

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

 

[Strider]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[Christopher]

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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?

 

[Stevil2001]

Homeworld is a space RTS computer game. I bought it but never got around to playing beyond the first level, but it looked as slick as anything, and I still listen to the soundtrack on occasion.

 

[Christopher]

Judging from the text in the map itself, it seems to be from a computer game called Homeworld.

 

[Deckerd]

Except it's not a 'verse. It's not even a 'laxy.

 

[Christopher]

Except it's not a 'verse. It's not even a 'laxy.

It's a 'verse of discourse.

 

[Borg451]

is this a proper map? i mean is it it authorised by the Serenity people.. will it be countered in future FF productions? like comics and such?

could someone PM me the answer

 

[Lindley]

Homeworld is a space RTS computer game. I bought it but never got around to playing beyond the first level, but it looked as slick as anything, and I still listen to the soundtrack on occasion.

Still haven't played the original Homeworld, but Homeworld 2 was a lot of fun. Only RTS I've ever played where you keep the same set of units between levels, *and* (except in the case of forced jumps) automatically collect all resources on a level before moving on.

It's awesome sending a core of Ion Beam Frigates against an enemy Carrier, supplemented by bomber squadrons and a wing of fighters to fly cover for the whole operation.

 

[Stevil2001]

Judging from the text in the map itself, it seems to be from a computer game called Homeworld.

...

 

[Christopher]

is this a proper map? i mean is it it authorised by the Serenity people.. will it be countered in future FF productions? like comics and such?

Does that matter? I don't understand the attitude that there's something wrong with a work of fiction if it isn't consistent with another work of fiction. It's all equally made-up anyway. And it's not as if the FF-verse is particularly consistent within itself, especially where cosmology and physics are concerned. The map is an imaginative and beautiful interpretation of something that's totally imaginary to begin with, and it's a whole lot more self-consistent than its source material. Who cares whether it's "proper" or not? All that should matter about something fictional is whether it's well-done and enjoyable. It's not like you're studying for a test and have to make sure your texts are accurate.

The only "future productions" likely to exist are RPG updates and further comics. It's been stated that future RPG updates will be consistent with this map. As for the comics, if there are any more, it'll be up to their creators whether they want to acknowledge the maps, but I doubt it will become an issue, because the stories in the comics are likely to focus on characters and action, not cartography. As with everything in fiction, they should be free to contradict the maps if that's what the story requires.