Horses by Harlock

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Horses

POSTED BY: HARLOCK
UPDATED: Saturday, December 13, 2003 12:42
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VIEWED: 1999
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Thursday, December 11, 2003 8:00 PM

I love the show and conceipt that it is a westren in space but I just can't get the fact that people still use horses, am I just being picky about it I do think that the furter away from the law the more lawless it will get that is the belevable that what star trek is like I was more of a Blade Runner fan.

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Thursday, December 11, 2003 11:47 PM

BARNEYT

I guess it's all part of the idea that the settlers get left on the planet with nothing but blankets...

If you don't have access to a fuel source, a car (or whatever space version you want) isn't going to be of any use to you - however, horses run off grass and that's easier to find...

---
"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing

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Friday, December 12, 2003 12:17 AM

DRAKON

Quote:
Originally posted by Harlock:
I love the show and conceipt that it is a westren in space but I just can't get the fact that people still use horses, am I just being picky about it I do think that the furter away from the law the more lawless it will get that is the belevable that what star trek is like I was more of a Blade Runner fan.

You are being too picky

Think about all it takes to make our modern world, the layers of infrastructure, from mines and oil drills to refineries and factories and gas stations. Using autos as one example, there is a lot of things required just to get them on the road. And you need the damn roads too.

What infrastructure is needed for horses? Grazing land, maybe a barn, source of leather, some blacksmithing skills. Horses don't need roads, they don't need gas stations, oil refineries, or really much of anything more than you would need to provide for human life. You need to live, and eat and such. A horse needs what you need, not something completely different.

Also, horses are self replicating, unlike cars. If you need more horses, just put on the Barry White, leave the barn door closed, and wait a while. Cars need factories (lots of them, as well as mines and again, we are talking a lot of infrastructure.)

So if you are starting off a new colony, on a remote moon, which would you take? The high tech automobile, to a world without roads, gas stations, parts dealerships, etc. Or horses, which don't need any of those things?

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Friday, December 12, 2003 5:16 AM

SERGEANTX

One thing to consider that I don't think has been given proper due. What we're watching is fiction and it exists to tell a story. So many of the decisions the writer and director make in how best to tell that story are about what mood will be evoked by a given embellishment.

For example, take the dialog. Its highly unlikely that people 500 years from now will be speaking with anything like the western/southern dialect used in Firefly. But the cultural situation may in fact be very much like the American western frontier, so Joss uses that dialect to remind us of something we can relate to. It also implies that the people on the fringes of society will be subject to the same kind of cultural biases that exist today. I think this is exactly why Joss has people speaking with a dialect that is often considered, by some of us anyway, as less sophisticated.

On these rough cut frontier planets they'll likely have something altogether different from the horses we're familiar with, but since we really couldn't have any idea what that might be horses serve as an appropriate placeholder, again giving us something we're familiar with that can give us a clear picture of how close these people are to real subsistence living.

The beauty of fiction, including science fiction, is that we can tell a story without being bound by the constraints of reality. Ironically, that can often give us the freedom to tell the story in such a way that we have a truer understanding of the experience because of the fanciful or symbolic liberties this affords us.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

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Friday, December 12, 2003 5:41 AM

NADJA

That's beautiful, man. *sniff*

Seriously, very nicely put.

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Friday, December 12, 2003 6:56 AM

CHANNAIN

i DO aim to misbehave

Quote:
Originally posted by Harlock:
I love the show and concept that it is a western in space, but I just can't get the fact that people still use horses.

well, not every body sees a horse as a friend and a partner, I guess (right Leah?). let me offer a couple viewpoints.

Quote:
Excerpted from Malcolm Reynolds' introduction
"Here's how it is. Earth got used up. So we left and terraformed a bunch of new earths. Some rich and flush with new technologies. Some, not so much..."

that in a nutshell is JW's premise. based on that, horses are actually better on the outer rim worlds where things are just not so flush. why? good question - here's the thing. only the rich and ostentatious can afford the fancy, pretty things, including technology. regular folk who just don't have much to begin with would never be able to afford a motorized vehicle, let alone to put fuel into it. these would be the same folk who are doing all the farming, supplying the core worlds with their groceries. now more than likely, their neighbors are the ones who have all their acerage planted in enough alfalfa and oats to provide feed supply for everybody within a 50-mile radius.

funny thing - in our world, a horse is considered a rich man's toy. in Firefly, a horse is a poor man's tool.

Quote:
Originally posted by Harlock:
I was more of a Blade Runner fan.

me too - great flick!! and I have a feeling JW is a fan too. that's probably why the one rich bastard in Heart of Gold was also the only one in town who owned a hover craft and a big bad laser pistol.

Firefly Artwork Series
http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922

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Friday, December 12, 2003 10:08 PM

DRAKON

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Its highly unlikely that people 500 years from now will be speaking with anything like the western/southern dialect used in Firefly.

I don't know about that. Noticed this phenomena back in my submarine days. You put Yankees and good ole boys on a submarine for 90 days, by the time they come up, the Yankees will be speaking southern, and the good ole boys will not have changed their speech patterns that much. There is something infectious about southern speech patterns, one slips into it rather naturally unless one is careful.

Quote:
The beauty of fiction, including science fiction, is that we can tell a story without being bound by the constraints of reality. Ironically, that can often give us the freedom to tell the story in such a way that we have a truer understanding of the experience because of the fanciful or symbolic liberties this affords us.

Well said. and good point.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Saturday, December 13, 2003 12:42 PM

ADORIBLE

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
Noticed this phenomena back in my submarine days. You put Yankees and good ole boys on a submarine for 90 days, by the time they come up, the Yankees will be speaking southern, and the good ole boys will not have changed their speech patterns that much. There is something infectious about southern speech patterns, one slips into it rather naturally unless one is careful.

I have also found this to be the case. If I hang around with anyone with a strong southern accent (pretty much anyone in my mother's family,) I pick up a twang that I can't shake for a few days. However, all of my mother's family insists that she picked up my paternal grandmother's Yankee accent. Go figure

I live in my own world,
they know me here.

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