Now that’s interesting, given that the series was based on the film Stagecoach and Mal was on the losing side of a civil war.
Back to technology for a moment; who works on the high speed train?
We have a super-cool comics store here in Asheville, The Sword and Grail. It’s cool because:
- There’s slightly more women than men who work there.
- They know me by name (and would know my wife by name if she reserved comics–they certainly know her by sight).
- They always ask whether you need any help when you walk in, and if something nifty’s come in that they think you might like, they show it to you gleefully. (The latest treasure, actually, is a book of essays about Firefly).
- It’s clean and well-lit.
- No embarrassing geekporn adorning the walls.
Great place–I wish all comic stores were this cool!
Daniel
Not sure, could have been either or both. I know I’ve used febreeze as a last-ditch solution to being out of clean uniforms before when I was doing summer training in AFJROTC (Which was also where I learned that if you don’t give febreeze time to dry, it smells “flowery” as our training officer described it, though he was unable to localize the smell in the formation.) 
The train would make sense if an off-world interest ran the mines. Local workers dig up the ore or whatever in the mines, the stuff gets loaded onto trains that pass through all the mining towns and the stuff gets piled up at some central location to be processed/shipped off world. Thus, the technicians to maintain the train and tracks would probably be trained and paid by whoever owned the mines.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, sir!”
Not sure, could have been either or both. I know I’ve used febreeze as a last-ditch solution to being out of clean uniforms before when I was doing summer training in AFJROTC (Which was also where I learned that if you don’t give febreeze time to dry, it smells “flowery” as our training officer described it, though he was unable to localize the smell in the formation.)
The train would make sense if an off-world interest ran the mines. Local workers dig up the ore or whatever in the mines, the stuff gets loaded onto trains that pass through all the mining towns and the stuff gets piled up at some central location to be processed/shipped off world. Thus, the technicians to maintain the train and tracks would probably be trained and paid by whoever owned the mines.
Heh, I met the lady who put that book together, P.N. Elrod, IIRC, at AggieCon 35 last year, and ran into her again at A-Kon 16 this year. There’s also a similar book about StarGate, with essays discussing, among other things, the goofy way aliens dress, to the personalities of the characters, the date-ability of the characters, weapons used by the aliens, etc. and there’s another one coming out along the same lines for FarScape pretty soon.
So some poor tech bastards live in the armpit of the solar system, cesspool of the quadrant keeping a train running for the grimy locals. Oh, they’d catch the miner disease! Hope they have a good medical program. Somehow, I don’t think so.
Ack, sorry for the partial double-post. It’s been happening to me a lot lately. I’d blame it on th eocmputer, but it’s happened on two or three different ones. :smack:
Nobody said the technicians had to be brought in from offworld. I tend to doubt that most places that set up business in foreign countries import all their workers with them. You’d hire and train what you could find locally to save money (especially since someone who spent all their life living in the cesspool of the quadrant might not expect to be paid as much as someone from a more civilized world.)
Why not? If you can be an Alpha on the Rim or a Delta-Minus in the core where would you rather live?
The medicine was valuable, but the pissant yokels could afford enough of it to keep them going.
Hell, it’s probably how they keep the wage slavery/company store thing going. Vicious cycle.
-Joe
It wouldn’t even have to be an off-world interest. If the owner were local, and his buyer were off-world, he could run the ore hauling/launching service as a company-town kind of business. Hire the best and brightest locals to work for okay pay; maybe even establish a tech school and charge tuition! Play up the experience they get working with high-tech, like today’s military does: just as with Kaylee, knowing how to run tech makes you employable off-world.
Turn all of your profits right back into expanding your capacity. The gains you can make for the current generation of settlers are miniscule, and while you may be remembered fondly, there’s some cutthroat jerk on the other side of the planet who is using his money to expand his capacity, and there are only so many veins of ore on each planet. Build yourself up into a local Gates, Rockefeller, or Pullman. Once you’ve crushed the competition and you’re the only game on-world, you can make nice to the locals – you can afford to be a benevolent monarch.
It’s easy to be a big fish on a rim planet. And with the lack of laws on such planets, the big fish can eat whatever he/she wants. The core is ruled by corporations, law is likely to be very important and very strict there, so someone who wants illegal drugs, or a bevvy of slave girls/boys would move to the rim to indulge themselves.
I’m going to brave one of theses joints after work.
Define “geekporn”. This is pictures of motherboards with the BIOS unplugged, or what?
If she’s 6 feet tall and then some, looks about 17, has C cups or larger, weighs less than 130 lbs, and her shoes have extremely high heels, she’s halfway there. Give her a laser, a broadsword, a thrashed laptop, cybernetic or reptilian body parts, and a skimpy outfit, and she’s geekporn.
Examples:
- Hyperboobular babes in chainmail.
- Cybernetic babes with lasers.
- Half-demon babes in leather goth outfits.
- Anything with Danger Girl on it (worksafe, probably).
Actually, that’s a good side note, right there. A comic book shop is a workplace. If you’ve got NSFW posters up, then it’s probably not a very welcoming workplace; by extension, it’s therefore a pretty poorly thought out place of business, unless it’s a strip club, lingerie store, or sex toy shop.
She was a Wednesday Addams type in an sleevless black T shirt. She had a crucifix that looked like a tiny battleaxe with Gandalf nailed to it. She spoke in a monotone: “yes sir right this way sir thank you sir.”
I expected her to be sucking on a piece or raw liver. Perhaps she had hidden it beneath the table, like I used to stick chewing gum under my desk.
But then, this was Treasure Hills, one of those neighborhoods I’ve avoided. I bought two covers and left, backing out the door.
Her Boss at a table in the back of the room smiled like a zipper.
The cop in the Kroger’s had a heart painted on her leg. The other patrons had blank stares. A package of liver in the butcher area was open. I left as quickly as I could, not waiting for my change. I bought tonight’s London Broil at a Safeway closer to home.
Averse. That might be an interesting storyline down the road.
Why not? That situation happened a lot here on Earth, during the past couple of centuries.
I had a good experience in my local comic book shop: clean, well-organized place; helpful and friendly girl behind the counter. Hadn’t been in one for about twenty years; it’s funny the things that change and the things that don’t. Maybe I should rediscover my geek roots.
Aw, fuck. I went back and forth on which one was right, and of course I picked the wrong one. Me speak English good.
I shouldn’t have posted that without noting that I make the same slip often; it helps to remember the word “adversity” and work it out from there. I’m 44; in the past few years it seems that words are beginning to elude my mental grasp, like slippery little fish. Not good news for a writer.
[Bump because I saw it for the first time tonite on SciFi.]
Wow. What an episode. Character development: River, Book, and Wash all show that they are much more than you might have thought. And Kaylee may be less. Not in a bad way. It’s OK for someone on the crew not to be a total warrior. Though it’s nice to find out that River might be.
Drama, just the right amount of humor, and great violence.
I like great violence.
I can’t wait for the next one.
(I have decided not to see the movie until I finish the series run - whether that be by broadcast or rental.)
(I just saw it for the first time, too). Book seemed mighty proficient with a firearm, and not the least bit hesitant about using it. They seem to be constantly hinting that he has a past that’s not so holy; it would have been interesting to see where they took his character had the show gone on.
Verrrrry much so. this could have been a great series if on for 5 or so years.