THOSE LEFT BEHIND

Wednesday, August 22, 2007 2:23:31 AM

Where are the other racial groups of mankind, unrepresented in the few episodes of Firefly that we have seen?

It seems likely that we can overlook small communities such as native Americans, Innuit and so on... they might well have opted for colonies far away from the Alliance, and we just haven't seen them yet.

We see a few black faces in Firefly, but not many. Those that are seen seem to have an 'African American' background, rather than actually being from Africa. Still on an Earth that was failing, under ecological meltdown, where's the first place that will suffer massive famine? Africa. It seems plausible that these folks aren't seen in the 'Verse because they never got to leave Earth.

Englishmen (of a kind) appear to exist, so it appears that the British managed to settle a world or two, thus giving us the lovely Badger and his colleagues. Where are the other Europeans? Well, again, it looks like they didn't make it.

Much of Europe has a manufacturing economy. They import food. In the event of a famine (perhaps caused by oil supplies running low) it's no longer possible to import food from all over the world. Doesn't matter that you have Mercedes, Audi, Airbus, fancy pharmaceuticals... if people won't or can't trade with you, your country will soon dissolve into anarchy.

The Chinese teamed up with the Americans in Whedon's "utopian" vision of the future... but we don't see THAT many Chinese. Maybe they like living cheek-by-jowl on just a few central planets?

Where are the Japanese? A less corrupt nation with a more advanced space programme, you'd expect them to be in the 'Verse somewhere... unless Chinese expansionism means that there's no Japan, no Taiwan, etc., gone the way of Tibet. (The Americans turning a blind eye to this might have been the price of cooperation.)

Where are the middle eastern nations? We know there are some Jews in the 'Verse, and Fanty and Mingo may have had ancestors from that region as well... but we see no Muslims.

Where are the Indians? Remember that pretty early in the 21st century, there will be more Indians than Chinese. (Assuming Indians are still free-birthers, and Chinese aren't.) Humanity's most numerous population didn't make it to the stars?

Here's my theory: they stayed behind. It would have been grim for decades, but eventually some kind of society could be re-established. Civilisation might be distinctly patchy, though! In the race to leave Earth-that-Was, and claim a piece of the new planetary system(s) that make up the 'Verse, I suspect that countless millions of people were abandoned. The poor, the unlucky, those with ineffective governments that failed to build arks.

Remember, if you can terraform a world like Mars or Venus, and survive while doing it, you can probably survive on a polluted Earth (maybe not everybody, but some) and make it more 'Earthlike' again. Over time.

I think one day the people of the new colonies will be hearing from Earth-that-Was again. Old Earth might become a new frontier, outisde Alliance jurisdiction. It might even be a hostile invader... or it might have sent colony ships elsewhere.

We shall see.