[TML] Alternate Firefly review

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 8/11/08 9:18 PM, "Grimmund" <grimmund at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:02 PM, Jerry W Barrington
> <jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> My main thing so far has been the absurd western-frontier-with-some-tech
>> bit.  And lot's of openly habitable planets/moons in 1 star system.
> 
> While I had some issues with the nature of the drives, and the layout
> of things in the 'verse...
> 
> The habitable planets and moons were specifically mentioned as being
> the products of minimal terraforming with the intent of dispersing the
> human population was widely as possible throughout the area to reduce
> the odds of extinction by a single event, regardless of the desires of
> the colonists.  This is a relatively common SF thread.

Given their gravitational interaction, planets can't be terribly close
together.  Especially not ones big enough to have habitable moons.  "Minimal
terraforming" isn't going to turn make Venus even as livable as Death
Valley.  Having a large number of livable planets in one system stretches
disbelief way to far.  You might manage it if they were all around 1 or 2
gas giants, but then they would be so far away as to be essentially
ungovernable.

As for keeping the eggs out of 1 basket, that runs other risks.  If all the
initial colonists concentrate on 1 planet, they have a far better chance of
*that* colony succeeding than if they scatter their resources.  After a few
centuries of buildup, they could then send other colonies out.  And in any
case, having all those people in 1 system is still in a basket together.  A
larger basket, to be sure, but still 1.  Presumably, the original colony
ships from Earth spread to multiple stars, which is all the redundancy you
need.

> Given the general but non-specific indications that earth had, at some
> point, been rendered uninhabitable, this seems like a reasonable
> cultural twitch.
> 
> The "frontier" material (prevalence of animal power) was explained in
> that animals are self-reproducing, and don't need imported spare parts
> or fuel.  And you can eat anything that breaks down and can be
> repaired.  This is also a relatively common SF thread.

Relying on animals is fine.  That's been a way of life for millenia.  On the
other hand, the Wild West outfits belong to a specific era.  For certain,
the large Chinese chunk of the population doesn't have it ingrained, and I
doubt the American part would that much after 500 years, a lot of it on
generation ships.