Don’t let rednecks play with anti-matter. It’s never “Okay, that’ll do 'er!” It’s always “Hey y’all! Lookit this!”
Don’t eat people. If you do, you’ll get Creutzfeldt-Jacob and it’s a hard way to die.this actually is true
If you take a marine animal, say a vampire squid, and it lives a few feet under the water surface, it’s the size of a tennis ball. But if it’s living a few thousand feet down, it can be nearly as big as a luxury cruiseship.
If you take human DNA and splice it with alien DNA you get a creature 1/2 alien and 1/2 human. But if she mates with a 100% human, their offspring will be a lot less human than she is, and it doesn’t have to wait until puberty to manifest its alieness.
Nematodes have feet, and maybe wings, and attack people on some planets.
Just like in real life.
Fools! I’ll destroy them all!
Suuuuure. As soon as you can explain why its economically smart to send poor people into outer space so they can be dirt farmers, I’ll find your idea credible.The only way it works is if interstellar travel is REALLY cheap. To my mind, this aspect is a major weak point of the backstory of Firefly, but has little to do with its dramatic qualities.
Point of clarification: It’s all in one solar system. There’s no interstellar travel aside from the generation ships that got them there originally.
It was made clear in an episode that it wasn’t uncommon for families to save up what they could, cram themselves into a crappy ship, and go for a one way trip out to the outer worlds.
I think the third world country analogy is mostly apt. Even if we had a desire to make the inside of the amazon an urbanized, modern area, it would take a lot of time, because technological infrastructure takes time to develop. And that’s the point - it takes time to build up that infrastructure. The core planets had the best start, and everyone else has started way later, with fewer people, less expertise, and less starting infrastructure. In a hundred years, the outer worlds would have a much more developed infrastructure, but at the point that they’re in at the show, having them plant crops with horse driven plows and such is entirely plausible.
I don’t know about “sending” the dirt poor farmers out, but folks in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th Century Europe didn’t seem to have too much trouble with the concept of dirt poor schleps hocking everything they owned for a one-way trip to the “New World” on an ocean-going deathtrap for a shot at “freedom” from established, oppressive powers in the “Old World.”
Actually, now that I think about it, it seems to me that there are folks here in the 21st century who don’t seem to have too much of a problem with the concept of a desperate, one-way push to “a better place,” however they define “better.” In the Firefly 'verse, better for some seems to be “anywhere the Alliance ain’t.”
Interestingly enough, we HAVE seen this sort of setup: Badger’s headquarters, which is apparantly made from combining a number of bulk shipping containers together. I can’t recall seeing it anywhere else, though we do have Inara doing the equivilant of living in a rented Volkswagon van (though with a garage provided to park it in).
Forgot to credit my source: The Laws of Anime.
Another one from the list that applies to most sci-fi:
In defense of the Vincent Price Fly, there’s no indication that the human-headed fly can think. After all, if it could think, and had even human sight, it should have been able to see the spiderweb. I’d always thought it simply had the same cognitive ability as, say, a parrot or dog.
Otherwise it would have said, “For the love of God, Montressor!”
At first it’s all “oohs and aahs” but eventually it’s all screams of terror.
-Joe
Now now…that would only be an appropriate correlary if the Alliance in “Firefly” was an oppressive government.
-Joe
Not to mention that aliens always seem to target planets where their fatal flaw can be easily exploited. I mean, come on:
(Spoiler for the movie Signs)
[spoiler]Aliens fatally vulnerable to water attack a planet 71% covered in the substance? Where it rains down from the sky?
Aftermath of Signs:
Alien 1: Gee, Bob, only 84% losses among the attacking forces. In fact, the only places we didn’t lose over 50% of our men were the fucking deserts!
Alien Bob: Just trying to outdo your little manuver there on the Sulfuric Acid Planet…
[/spoiler]
I’ve just got to say that I love this thread! 
Despite an infinite amount of alternate universes, you’ll always end up meeting your evil counterpart, never your “so good you seem like a slimeball” counterpart.
A new illness can always be cured, but only by something light-years away.
Transporters are considered the most dependable form of traveling, even though they never seem to work when you most need them.
Never trust anything with an exposed brain.
In the future, there is no mac & cheese. Everybody eats exocic alien dishes.
Thin, arched eyebrows = evil.
Peace - DESK
One of the bits I liked in Voyager was the episode where Neelix prepared macaroni and cheese. I swear it’s true.
Heck, to Neelix it must’ve been an “exotic alien food”.
You could make the argument that Spock’s alternate was the better of the two.
He wasn’t a slimeball or evil.
Under the conditioning of a lifetime he was still able to rationally understand the situation and be a force for change. He acted honorably when all others were corrupt around him. I think it showed a stronger person.
Jim
When traveling time for the future of mankind, avoid the great magnetic field.
Think the 80s backlash was bad? In the 24th Century, wanting to command a starship will be evidence of mental illness in a woman. Fortunately, it will have passed by the 25th Century.
Obviously, you’ve never met Ace Rimmer. Smoke him a kipper, he’ll be back for breakfast.
-Joe, what a guy!
This is my favorite contribution to the thread so far!
According to Babylon 5, the most dangerous profession in the universe is undoubtedly archaeology. I don’t think there was a single archaeologist on the show who didn’t uncover some lurking alien menace that posed a lethal threat to all life in the galaxy. It must be hell on their insurance rates.