Jak Nazryth
Mongoose
DFW said:
WOW...
You are the very first person that I know of that's expressed that opinion since 2002...
Not even close??? :?
ELB
- Thread starter Jak Nazryth
- Start date
WOW...
You are the very first person that I know of that's expressed that opinion since 2002...
Not even close??? :?
Jak Nazryth
Mongoose
rust said:
Make that 2 people! :lol:
Jak Nazryth said:
No, other than having space ships of a certain size, there is no relationship with Trav. FF is a poorly written Spaghetti Western thrown onto a few space ships.
I don't know any trav players (my groups) that really like the series as a representation of Trav. But, my player demographic may be different than yours.
Sadly I'm in the middle on this, so I'll keep my head down...
I can see Traveller in Firefly in that the ship is falling apart, they're reliant on solid-slug weapons, they're always arguing and they have problems making money, as well as the large, all-powerful ruling body that's breathing down their necks... but has no jump drives and all the planets are pretty much the same - arid, desert and cowboys - for the most part.
Farscape, on the other hand, they neither need to worry about fuel, upkeep or being bumped off by every ship they meet, but instead have a powerful ship that can take a pounding so only needs to really worry about military ships, but does have jump drives and does have a much better range of planets than Firefly (a major failing in Firefly's background and one the creator himself has acknowledged). Farscape DOES have the super-powers fighting among themselves and the crew caught in the middle, but I'd say less close than Firefly is...
If you combine various older sci-fi (like Heinlein's Starship Troopers (books, not the films) or Asimov's Foundation) with aspects of Firefly, Farscape and Stargate, I think you'd probably approximate to Traveller...
I can see Traveller in Firefly in that the ship is falling apart, they're reliant on solid-slug weapons, they're always arguing and they have problems making money, as well as the large, all-powerful ruling body that's breathing down their necks... but has no jump drives and all the planets are pretty much the same - arid, desert and cowboys - for the most part.
Farscape, on the other hand, they neither need to worry about fuel, upkeep or being bumped off by every ship they meet, but instead have a powerful ship that can take a pounding so only needs to really worry about military ships, but does have jump drives and does have a much better range of planets than Firefly (a major failing in Firefly's background and one the creator himself has acknowledged). Farscape DOES have the super-powers fighting among themselves and the crew caught in the middle, but I'd say less close than Firefly is...
If you combine various older sci-fi (like Heinlein's Starship Troopers (books, not the films) or Asimov's Foundation) with aspects of Firefly, Farscape and Stargate, I think you'd probably approximate to Traveller...
Jak Nazryth
Mongoose
But Traveller IS a western, base on Marc Miller's original idea.
Per Mark Miller, Traveller is set in the "Wild West", "Pony Express Days" of the future. The whole "look and feel" of Traveller is similar to the late 1800's, after the American Civil War, where people travel around on steam powered tramp freighters encountering gun slingers, pirates, crooked merchants, etc...
Even on the COTI boards back when T20 came out, every single person I spoke with on the boards loved the fact that a show had finally come out that was so close to the spirit of Traveller.
It's true there is no connection at all between the history as invented by Marc Miller, and the History of Firefly as invented by Joss Weadon, but the look and feel of Firefly, crew struggling to keep their ship flying, the adventures they encounter, is very close to Marc Millers original idea. Maybe there has been a lot of drift of the concept of Traveller since it's introduction.
Anyway, you guys have your own concept, which is cool.
By the way, I never watched Farscape much, I alwasy called it... MUPPETS... IN... SPACCCCCCEEEEE!"
Living organism spaceship or something like that... right?
Per Mark Miller, Traveller is set in the "Wild West", "Pony Express Days" of the future. The whole "look and feel" of Traveller is similar to the late 1800's, after the American Civil War, where people travel around on steam powered tramp freighters encountering gun slingers, pirates, crooked merchants, etc...
Even on the COTI boards back when T20 came out, every single person I spoke with on the boards loved the fact that a show had finally come out that was so close to the spirit of Traveller.
It's true there is no connection at all between the history as invented by Marc Miller, and the History of Firefly as invented by Joss Weadon, but the look and feel of Firefly, crew struggling to keep their ship flying, the adventures they encounter, is very close to Marc Millers original idea. Maybe there has been a lot of drift of the concept of Traveller since it's introduction.
Anyway, you guys have your own concept, which is cool.
By the way, I never watched Farscape much, I alwasy called it... MUPPETS... IN... SPACCCCCCEEEEE!"
Living organism spaceship or something like that... right?This sounds suspiciously like Lexx ...Jak Nazryth said:By the way, I never watched Farscape much, I alwasy called it... MUPPETS... IN... SPACCCCCCEEEEE!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexx
If you had the impression that someone kidnapped the Monty Python crew, fed them a huge amount of LSD and forced them to write a sci-
ence fiction series .... that's Lexx.
Farscape was a little more serious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farscape
So high-tech worlds in close proximity to backwards low-tech hell holes, pervasive anti-gravity tech (at least in civilized areas), backwater space lanes plied by free traders who use slug throwers to defend themselves while doing whatever it takes to get some cash and keep their ship flying, veterans of wars going out "adventuring", a strong Nobility presence (and even a few on-screen uses for the ol' Social Standing stat), cryogenic suspension technology, dark conspiracies and the existence of psionic powers have NOTHING to do with Traveller?
Surely you jest? Not trying to start any sort of flame war, but to say that Firefly isn't even remotely similar to Traveller is like saying John Carpenter's "The Thing" is not even remotely like something H.P. Lovecraft would have written.
Obviously YTU (and MTU) will differ from each other and the OTU, and not everyone enjoys the same type of game, but claiming that Firefly's setting doesn't at least partially overlap the "free traders trying to make money in the ass-end of nowhere" corner of Traveller is just stirring the pot.
Surely you jest? Not trying to start any sort of flame war, but to say that Firefly isn't even remotely similar to Traveller is like saying John Carpenter's "The Thing" is not even remotely like something H.P. Lovecraft would have written.
Obviously YTU (and MTU) will differ from each other and the OTU, and not everyone enjoys the same type of game, but claiming that Firefly's setting doesn't at least partially overlap the "free traders trying to make money in the ass-end of nowhere" corner of Traveller is just stirring the pot.
rust said:
All of which are not necessarily unlike Traveller either.
After posting, I thought about re-editing since my original comes across a little bit more passionately than I actually feel about the subject. But we're (mostly) pretty thick-skinned around here, so things probably won't get too out of hand. (Famous Last Words, right?)
True, but this is all many of them have in common with Firefly/Serenity.hdan said:All of which are not necessarily unlike Traveller either.
For example, my own settings with spacefaring traders are usually some-
what similar to Poul Anderson's stories about the Polesotechnic League,
and my other settings often have a "feel" similar to that of the novels of
Jack McDevitt. Both types of settings could hardly be mistaken for simi-
lar to Firefly/Serenity, I think.
Jak Nazryth
Mongoose
hdan said:rust said:
All of which are not necessarily unlike Traveller either.
After posting, I thought about re-editing since my original comes across a little bit more passionately than I actually feel about the subject. But we're (mostly) pretty thick-skinned around here, so things probably won't get too out of hand. (Famous Last Words, right?)
I just love the homage to Traveller that Joss Wedon inserted into the script of the pilot episode of Firefly when the pilot "Wash" said over the ships com system.... "Attention Travellers, we will be landing on Percephone at the Eavesdown docks shortly"... something like that..
Even Joss took some elements of Traveller to create Firefly.
Also: just to point out - the Pony Express lasted 18 months before the Telegraph (the communications line, not the paper) put them out of business...
The communications in Traveller are more like the pre-Royal Mail days in England - mail being picked up as and when someone (reliable) is headed that way... with an early mail service in the form of the X-boat lines.
But yeah, just because he based the concept on a setting, doesn't mean that *every* planet has to be stuck in the same setting... you don't get cowboys in the same time period in England, France, Germany etc and they're only separated by an ocean - separated by months of travel, you'd expect more variation in culture than "oh another western town" - especially with so many hi-tech worlds...
Just saying - a concept is different to wanting all the worlds to be 90% the same...
The communications in Traveller are more like the pre-Royal Mail days in England - mail being picked up as and when someone (reliable) is headed that way... with an early mail service in the form of the X-boat lines.
But yeah, just because he based the concept on a setting, doesn't mean that *every* planet has to be stuck in the same setting... you don't get cowboys in the same time period in England, France, Germany etc and they're only separated by an ocean - separated by months of travel, you'd expect more variation in culture than "oh another western town" - especially with so many hi-tech worlds...
Just saying - a concept is different to wanting all the worlds to be 90% the same...
