GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Verse Map: White Paper Available

POSTED BY: LEMMING
UPDATED: Monday, March 23, 2009 21:42
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VIEWED: 6258
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Monday, March 2, 2009 12:29 PM

LEMMING


http://www.qmxonline.com/The_Verse_in_Numbers.pdf

This is a free download of 100 pages, detailing just about every planet and moon in the Verse and tying everything on The Map into some sort of order. Or as Andy of QMX puts it:

"...... I want to make sure you understand that the next 100 pages (no, really, 100 pages) represent the most painstakingly-researched and thoughtful effort to make sense of a bunch of hooey I've ever seen, and I am speaking as something of an expert on hooey. J. Chris Bourdier is a insane genius and the most dedicated fan of any show/movie that it has ever been my pleasure to work with. And I humbly bow my head to his Awesomeness and the singular achievement this document represents.
Consider yourself warned."


There is a huge amount of work in this and I expect it to create some discussion, but it nevertheless manages to create a basis, if you like, for a complete catalogue of The Verse that is internally consistent (if not 100% cosmologically feasible!)

As an aside, there is included another alternative timeline that fits with what we know, but is entirely speculative.

It's a work in progress if you like and updates and revisions are more than possible.

This complements The Map and contains most of the assumptions that allowed it to be put together. Put another way, it is fanwankery of a fairly high order (that's a compliment by the way: I couldn't have done it!)

Nick
(The Signal: www.serenityfirefly.com)


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Monday, March 2, 2009 1:26 PM

SCHISM


I just wanted to say that I am speechless.

Utterly, utterly speechless.

Except for the ability to say that I am in fact speechless.

Otherwise, this is me, totally speechless.

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Monday, March 2, 2009 2:10 PM

2BY2GINGERBLUE


The Verse as created by an alternate god.
Thank You, I needed this today.

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Monday, March 2, 2009 5:09 PM

NCBROWNCOAT


My only question is how long will it take to download.

http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/








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Monday, March 2, 2009 6:56 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Hey Lemming, I can't post there. Can you post if, in addition to Ita Moon, they can make a world with rings, preferably in the Georgia System, and with 4 other bodies in close proximity (like 4 moons). This would identify the location of the U-Day Bar in the Train Job teaser.
Thanks.



Quote:

Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:
My only question is how long will it take to download.



Yesterday it took me longer to print out than to download.

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Monday, March 2, 2009 11:46 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Hey, also can you post for them to include the orbital duration for the other suns around White? Like how long does it take Georgia and Red to complete an orbit around White Sun? Same for Kalidasa and Blue Sun.

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Monday, March 2, 2009 11:52 PM

ASARIAN


The Serenity Blu-Ray has a Verse map too in the Alliance database (be it somewhat limited, near as I can tell). Maybe that'll help too.


--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:07 AM

LEMMING


Quote:

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Hey Lemming, I can't post there. Can you post if, in addition to Ita Moon, they can make a world with rings, preferably in the Georgia System, and with 4 other bodies in close proximity (like 4 moons). This would identify the location of the U-Day Bar in the Train Job teaser.
Thanks.




Here we go again ;-)

The short answer is no, again. Sorry.

The longer answer might be to study the white paper and see if it could be possible to fit something like that in. Adjustments to the white paper are possible (though not up to me, you'd need to talk to Chris B and Andy at QMX) and you are of course completely free to accept or ignore what's in the Map or white paper as you wish. What cannot be changed now though, is the Map itself. That's a fixed (and very beautiful) piece of Geoff Mandel's artwork and revising artwork after the fact simply isn't going to happen. For fan fiction needs, I'd say just ignore inconvenient details :-)

For canon definition needs though, bear in mind that The Train Job was the second pilot and that the ringed planet and moons *just looked nice* and that's probably all there was to that shot (no map, no grand plan, no certainty of even getting the series go ahead at that stage)

My opinion is that reading definitive location information into a brief eye candy backdrop in a pilot episode, is essentially pointless.
Place the U-Day bar wherever makes sense timing wise if you must (i.e within easy reach of Ezra I imagine) and never mind about ringed planets.

That's not to say that if Serenity II for example ever eventually got made and stuff in that contradicted the Map (which would be entirely possible as it's Joss Whedon's Verse after all) that a Map 2.0 encompassing all the existing inconsistencies would not be a possible project, but it would take even longer to do! :-)

Hey, I didn't "wibble" this time at least :-)

Nick
(The Signal: www.serenityfirefly.com)

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:18 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by Lemming:
Quote:

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Hey Lemming, I can't post there. Can you post if, in addition to Ita Moon, they can make a world with rings, preferably in the Georgia System, and with 4 other bodies in close proximity (like 4 moons). This would identify the location of the U-Day Bar in the Train Job teaser.
Thanks.




Here we go again ;-)

The short answer is no, again. Sorry.

The longer answer might be to study the white paper and see if it could be possible to fit something like that in. Adjustments to the white paper are possible (though not up to me, you'd need to talk to Chris B and Andy at QMX) and you are of course completely free to accept or ignore what's in the Map or white paper as you wish. What cannot be changed now though, is the Map itself. That's a fixed (and very beautiful) piece of Geoff Mandel's artwork and revising artwork after the fact simply isn't going to happen. For fan fiction needs, I'd say just ignore inconvenient details :-)

For canon definition needs though, bear in mind that The Train Job was the second pilot and that the ringed planet and moons *just looked nice* and that's probably all there was to that shot (no map, no grand plan, no certainty of even getting the series go ahead at that stage)

My opinion is that reading definitive location information into a brief eye candy backdrop in a pilot episode, is essentially pointless.
Place the U-Day bar wherever makes sense timing wise if you must (i.e within easy reach of Ezra I imagine) and never mind about ringed planets.

That's not to say that if Serenity II for example ever eventually got made and stuff in that contradicted the Map (which would be entirely possible as it's Joss Whedon's Verse after all) that a Map 2.0 encompassing all the existing inconsistencies would not be a possible project, but it would take even longer to do! :-)

Hey, I didn't "wibble" this time at least :-)

Nick


I did not mean to change the Map. I meant to post in the comments of that page for the White Paper. It says it is a living document, intended to be changed and revised to correct oversights. That's from Chris B, posted there, and he's entertaining the input about Ita Moon in the comments section. I cannot post there, so I was asking if you could for me. I understand the Map is not going to be changed, that's not what I'm asking. After the White Paper has designated the locations of places like Ita Moon and the ringed world, we could just pretend the image on the Map was a side shot where the ring is invisible when in the plane of view. The White Paper, as a living document, could alter it's image to make a ringed world, I suppose - doesn't mean the Map product would need to be changed.
So, could you post for consideration of change and update, besides Ita Moon, the ringed world, plus the orbital duration of the outer 4 Suns?
I also notice they have some notes for some other data. Can you also post if they have determined locations for Kowlon Fed Base, and Kowlonshi (Kaylee's birthplace)?

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:26 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by asarian:
The Serenity Blu-Ray has a Verse map too in the Alliance database (be it somewhat limited, near as I can tell). Maybe that'll help too.


--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam


This map in the database does not seem to mesh with the Map of the Verse, or the White Paper. The database stuff just seems to reiterate info from the show. It's also very limited.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:33 AM

ASARIAN


Quote:

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
This map in the database does not seem to mesh with the Map of the Verse, or the White Paper. The database stuff just seems to reiterate info from the show. It's also very limited.


That's what I figured (I only looked briefly at it). The database was, overall, a bit disappointing, really. No Battle of Serenity Valley dates in the historical database, for instance; and no date of birth for River. I'm still gonna take the Blu-Ray apart, though, piece by piece, as it contains some very shiny works of art. :)


--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:38 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


I did see one record in there that listed 1 May 2511 regarding BoSV. However, my familiarity with military records allows that most dates are recorded as the 1st of the month, using a 2nd of the month, or the 3rd, signifies something other than the date which the event occured. So I conjure that 1 May 2511 merely means that it happened in May of 2511.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:45 AM

LEMMING


Quote:

Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
I did not mean to change the Map. I meant to post in the comments of that page for the White Paper. It says it is a living document, intended to be changed and revised to correct oversights. That's from Chris B, posted there, and he's entertaining the input about Ita Moon in the comments section. I cannot post there, so I was asking if you could for me. I understand the Map is not going to be changed, that's not what I'm asking. After the White Paper has designated the locations of places like Ita Moon and the ringed world, we could just pretend the image on the Map was a side shot where the ring is invisible when in the plane of view. The White Paper, as a living document, could alter it's image to make a ringed world, I suppose - doesn't mean the Map product would need to be changed.
So, could you post for consideration of change and update, besides Ita Moon, the ringed world, plus the orbital duration of the outer 4 Suns?
I also notice they have some notes for some other data. Can you also post if they have determined locations for Kowlon Fed Base, and Kowlonshi (Kaylee's birthplace)?



Ah. I misunderstood. My bad.

Quite right, there are no contact details for directly feeding back on the white paper, though you can always email QMX. Or possibly comment via the FireflyShipWorks site where direct comment is possible.

Sure, I can forward this on to Chris B though.

Will do.

Nick

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:56 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by Lemming:


Ah. I misunderstood. My bad.

Quite right, there are no contact details for directly feeding back on the white paper, though you can always email QMX. Or possibly comment via the FireflyShipWorks site where direct comment is possible.

Sure, I can forward this on to Chris B though.

Will do.

Nick


The comments are posted right there, at this lionk:
http://www.fireflyshipworks.com/2009/02/the-verse-in-numbers/

But as I already said, I cannot post there, so if you can, that would be fine.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:31 PM

LEMMING


Unsure as to why you can't post on the firefly shipworks site?

You can link to it but not post, but posting to a board like this is allowed (must be some weird sys admin rule I assume?)

Anyway, pointed Chris over here rather than 3rd party all the points.

Nick

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 8:09 PM

QMXANDY


JewelStaiteFan -

I'm the admin over at the Ship Works. Why can't you post? We moderate the messages and I will admit to occasionally being a little slow approving them. But I've never prevented a post that wasn't spam-related.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 8:16 PM

QMXANDY


BTW, just want to clear up the whole Ita Moon thing: According to our notes, it was not yet open for colonization and was still undergoing terraforming at the time the map was published (in The Verse Standard Calendar). There are lots (lots = thousands) of bodies in The Verse cluster not noted on the map. Most are too small to be worth noting. Some are black rocks. Some are undergoing terraforming. A few are too big to terraforming using current technology.

I believe Chris is already adding it to the next dot release of The Verse white paper.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 9:40 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by QMxAndy:
JewelStaiteFan -

I'm the admin over at the Ship Works. Why can't you post? We moderate the messages and I will admit to occasionally being a little slow approving them. But I've never prevented a post that wasn't spam-related.


Not sure why. Nothing to do with delay or approvals. My work units have many restrictions, normally due to cookies. I can work here ok, but over at shinyuniverse.com (I think it is) the cookies requirement leaves me out. For my home dial-up, this site crashes my computer and wipes the isp link, and shipworks takes longer to load than here (on my work unit, with T1 lines).
A few days ago I noticed the posts at ffsw and the time stamps progressing, but the last day or so I noticed all the timestamps are stuck on something like 1:23am or something - is something there locked up?

Thanks for making the Maps, I got a rollup (not opened yet) and a fold up (lots of wear already, doesn't stay in that little sleeve for long).
If Chris gets that data for the orbital durations of the outer Suns, we could get the info here or on the message area of ffsw instead of waiting for the new versions of the White Paper.

FYI, there is a Map of the Verse discussion thread over in the Episode forum, in case you want to trudge through that.

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Wednesday, March 4, 2009 4:18 AM

QMXANDY


Ah. Okay then. I thought it might be something we were doing.

Thanks for the kind words on the map. It has been (as noted elsewhere) a labor of love for us, as all our Serenity stuff is.

And there's more to come!

:-)

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Thursday, March 5, 2009 1:21 AM

ELECTRICLION


Hey, everyone. I'm in a rush, so I'll make this quick. I'm sorry for not including orbital periods of the main stars. I came up with those numbers and they're on the spreadsheet. I don't know why I didn't include them. They will be there in the next release, along with Ita Moon, and a bunch of grammar corrections.

I'm glad all of you like it. It's been fun to create. I'll get those changes posted soon.

J. Chris Bourdier

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Thursday, March 5, 2009 3:10 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.


Shiny!

Thanks for the link Lemming. Just downloaded it.

More source material for my Serenity game.

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Thursday, March 5, 2009 7:19 AM

ELECTRICLION


Jewelstaitefan, I'd put the bar in the teaser of The Train Job on St. Lucius, the third and smallest moon orbiting Beylix. Beylix is a terrestrial planet with rings -- the only one in the Verse, I think, and St. Lucius is definitely a "little moon."

When in sunny Overlook, on St. Lucius, stop in at Frank's Place, raise a glass of the local fruit wine with Frank and the gang, and toast Unification Day! (Just leave your brown coat at home.)

Chris

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Thursday, March 5, 2009 9:53 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


About the figures from the spreadsheet, you could just post them here for now, and we'll catch the new version when it's released.

Quote:

Originally posted by ElectricLion:
Jewelstaitefan, I'd put the bar in the teaser of The Train Job on St. Lucius, the third and smallest moon orbiting Beylix. Beylix is a terrestrial planet with rings -- the only one in the Verse, I think, and St. Lucius is definitely a "little moon."

When in sunny Overlook, on St. Lucius, stop in at Frank's Place, raise a glass of the local fruit wine with Frank and the gang, and toast Unification Day! (Just leave your brown coat at home.)

Chris


The world with rings does not need to be terraformed/inhabited.
The other listed world with rings is New Canaan in Blue Sun.
As discussed in the Map of the Verse discussion thread over in Episode Forum, St Lucius is the closest match to what was shown onscreen, but even when Kalidasa (Beylix) and Georgia (Ezra) are at greatest proximity, it is till more travel time than what seems to occur on screen. That is why it would work better with a world within reasonable travel time, limiting it effectively to Georgia System.
Thanks for your input.

Did you have a loctaion for Kowlonshi (Kaylee's place of birth) or Kowlon Fed Base (where Safe script says Mal is to drop off Badger's proceeds from th cattle sale)?

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009 11:15 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


OK, I wanted to ask a few questions after checking the White Paper, some thing were not covered and my recall of astrophysics may be rusty.
Looks like the Blue Sun system orbits White Sun in a clockwise direction, viewed from the Map of the Verse, and all other systems orbit counterclockwise, correct? Does this mean that all bodies within these 4 inner systems also orbit counterclockwise around their primary, or do they orbit clockwise, or are there some exceptions either way?
Regarding Mr. Universe's location in Comm Ring 2 Station 2e being +150 degrees of Kalidasa, does this mean he is 150 degrees clockwise of Kalidasa? Is that correct?
Does Blue Sun system orbit in a plane perpendicular to the rest of the verse's plane, as shown on the Map? In which direction do these orbit move? Clockwise while looking thru the Blue Sun into the White Sun? or CCW?
And I didn't see any listing yet of the orbital duration of the Suns, will we need to wait for the next version, or might it get posted someplace like here?

If my guesstimations are correct, speed of light is about 7.2 Au/hour. The White Paper mentions the travel speed of the Exodus averaged about 1/3 of light, so that would be about 2.4 Au/hour. Was there some limitation on the max velocity? was it for maneuverability amid unexpected interference (uncharted asteroids, meteor showers, etc), was it also a limitation among the verse circa 2500, or was greater velocity allowed and practical?

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Thursday, March 19, 2009 4:03 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:
My only question is how long will it take to download.




100 pages of text is nothin'. Back in the really old days of 2400 baud modems, we used to figure 1 full page of pure text ( or 1 full screen , even I can't remember which.) as 2 K bytes. A megabyte would hold a complete NOVEL over 300 pages long. MPEG video plays back at about 10 MB per minute.

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Monday, March 23, 2009 9:42 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


bumpies for Qs.

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