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Companion Kate
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 2014
Location: UK
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 Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:09 pm Post subject: Season 2, Episode 6 |
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Last edited by Companion Kate on Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:02 am; edited 1 time in total |
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theonetruebix
Joined: 26 Aug 2005
Posts: 269
Location: The Portland of Oregon
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:17 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the plug on the charity screenings plan at the top of the show.
Must. Get. More. Browncoats. Organizing.
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phnxwolf
Joined: 22 Dec 2005
Posts: 1
Location: San Antonio, TX
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:42 pm Post subject: Gun Noises |
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| I believe the gun noise are an oxygen charge. In order for guns to work they need oxygen for the explosion to happen..... |
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Companion Kate
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 2014
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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There's oxygen in the atmosphere, dude. That's how come everyone can breathe. And we don't hear sound in space in Firefly (which is one of the things that makes the series brilliant).
The original emailer claimed that every time Mal or Jayne cocked a gun there was a capacitor charging sound. So I rewatched Serenity 0 and found that not to be true, as the River's cryo-box scene is a counterexample, hence the confusion. So, I guess, before we start discussing what the sound is we first need to locate it, to find a scene in which it occurs. Then we can figure out which gun(s) make it, and have loads of fun inventing theories as to why.
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Last edited by Companion Kate on Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:29 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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dougom
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 165
Location: Austin, TX, where we remain weird
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Companion Kate wrote: | | So, I guess, before we start discussing what the sound is we first need to locate it, to find a scene in which it occurs. Then we can figure out which gun(s) make it, and have loads of fun inventing theories as to why. |
Mal's pistol--which is the size of a durn Civil War-era dragoon--makes it in the scene in the Serenity (the Pilot) where he points it at Patience's face as she lays pinned under the horse. And I agree with the emailer; it sounds like an electronic flash charging.
I do know a bit about guns, so I'll add a some...
Mal's gun is shaped like a revolver, but it seems to use clips. This is odd, to say the least.
Mal's gun seems to fire without recoil, but seems to fire projectiles. If I were forced to guess, I would say that the boxy thing hanging under the "revolver" portion is some kind of anti-recoil device. In a world with inertial dampers, how hard can it be to damp recoil? Heck, for all I know, the energy released by the gunpowder is channeled back in and helps in keeping the capacitor (or whatever it is making that whirring noise) charged. Who knows.
I have never seen Mal's gun emit smoke, although it goes "bang." But I could just be mis-remembering. An interesting thought is that perhaps it fires projectiles, but uses some kind of magnetic induction accelarator to impart speed to the bullets, which would explain the electrical noise. Not a "rail gun," but just a simple (but powerful and compact) electromagnet. Just a thought.
(However, in "Heart of Gold," Mal has all the usual gun-cleaning accoutrement out, which would tend to indicate a gunpower weapon. Similarly, Jane is shown with gun-cleaning stuff out in "Ariel." But Jane has a lot of guns.)
Zoe's gun seems to be a pretty simple sawed-off shotgun; in "Serenity" (the movie) it clearly ejects shotgun shells. It also seems to be recoiless, at least when she fires it in Serenity (the Pilot) in the scene where she is laying on her back, firing at one of Patience's goons. I would say it's a 30-ought; a big gun for a woman, but Zoe is a big woman.
Vera, in "Our Mrs. Reynolds," performs impossibly. It is actually stated in the episode that "she needs air around her to fire," which is why the put her in the space suit. Perfectly reasonable for a projectile weapon using gunpower. However, Vera is fired more than once. How the heck can she shoot after the faceplate of the suit is already blown out?
The gun that River aims at Mal in "Serenity" (the movie) looks like a Glock (N.B., a gun that is mostly plastic). It's fairly big, and looks bigger than their 9mm to me--perhaps the new .40 caliber; a pretty big gun for "a 90 pound girl," but Glocks are fairly light due to the plastic (and thus are popular with law enforcement in the U.S.--you can have good stopping power, but it's not as heavy as, say, a sterling-silver Colt .45). And hey, who knew that Glock Inc. came on the Ark ships? Maybe they were bought out by Blue Sun?
I apologize; I did ramble a bit. |
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Vector
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 95
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 5:33 am Post subject: |
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| dougom wrote: | | Vera, in "Our Mrs. Reynolds," performs impossibly. It is actually stated in the episode that "she needs air around her to fire," which is why the put her in the space suit. Perfectly reasonable for a projectile weapon using gunpower. However, Vera is fired more than once. How the heck can she shoot after the faceplate of the suit is already blown out? |
No, sorry, that is not reasonable! None of the explosives used as propellants of projectiles need atmospheric oxygen, they have an internal oxygen source. In gunpowder (black powder), that was nitrate. Now, nitrocellulose is used, also called smokeless powder (because it doesn't contain sulfur, making the smoke of gunpowder).
The nitro-group NO2 is the source of oxygen in most explosives used nowadays, in nitroglycerine/dynamite, in TNT (trinitrotoluol), and others. So Vera must function in some other way, if she needs to breathe air. 
But that's a bit OT, isn't it? I want to add that I enjoyed Episode 6 very much, especially, I liked Tracy Hickman's enlightening words about canon. Well, he's a writer himself, he knows what he's talking about! |
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lhoward
Joined: 10 Jun 2005
Posts: 271
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| Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:43 am Post subject: |
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I think there's something in one of the commentary tracks about them "getting it wrong" with-respect-to guns needing oxygen to fire in Our Mrs Reynolds. Of course, that is with the firearms of today, maybe Vera (for combustion reasons, or maybe some other reason) needs a pressurized environment to fire. There might still have been enough left in the suit after the first shot to allow for more before the air was totally gone. Lets not even mention the effect on accuracy of firing at a target a ways off (hundreds of meters???) when shot through a curved piece of glass (I use the term glass loosely) strong enough to make a spacesuit helmet only inches in front of the barrel. Of course, this is all pure speculation.
Les
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cuardin
Joined: 07 Feb 2006
Posts: 15
Location: Birkastan.Stockholm.Sweden
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| Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:05 am Post subject: |
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About targeting with Vera:
Didn't Jayne say, when introducing his lady, that Vera had some form of auto-targeting? |
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gobluegirl
Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 539
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| Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:22 am Post subject: |
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"It's a Callahan fullbore autolock,
customized trigger and double
cartridge thourough-gage."
I always assumed that "fullbore autolock" meant that it was a way to adjust the weapon into automatic firing mode. So it could be a single-shot weapon and a fully automatic weapon.
Not that I know much about guns...
gbg
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Companion Kate
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 2014
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:13 am Post subject: |
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I had always assumed it was techobabble and didn't mean anything at all. And that Joss also knows nothing about guns.
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dougom
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 165
Location: Austin, TX, where we remain weird
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| Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:35 am Post subject: |
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| Companion Kate wrote: | | I had always assumed it was techobabble and didn't mean anything at all. And that Joss also knows nothing about guns. |
Ya never know; there may have been someone on staff that was a gun nut. You can find them in the strangest, most unexpected places (e.g., Santa Cruz, California). |
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ascolti
Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 11:53 am Post subject: No bang bang in space |
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Actually, there could be a more obvious reason why Vera won't fire in space.
Its not so much the lack of atmosphere, after all there's no 'air' in the bullet cartridge. But it could be useful to note that space is rather cold... very cold in fact. -230degrees C. So perhaps Vera might get a chill.....
Also, it would appear that like most 'modern' sub-machine guns that Vera is 'gas powered'. Essentially, in order to cut down on the need for an aggressive recoil to recycle (as seen on the AK47) and reload the weapon, gas under pressure is used.
Sorry, not a gun nut at all... just read in once ages ago and it stuck. I often wondered what would happen if you 'ran out of gas' in the middle of battle. 
Well, I was wondering what zero atmospheric pressure and the temperature would have on the gas.....
... But to be honest, I just found all this conversation very funny. Come on guys... lets not start talking about how this and that works. |
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Companion Kate
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 2014
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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| ascolti wrote: | | But it could be useful to note that space is rather cold... very cold in fact. -230degrees C |
I'm not convinced that that's true. -230 degrees C is 43 Kelvin. That's just 43 degrees above absolute zero. Now it's probably that cold somewhere in space - out between the stars, for example - but in the verse, there's a whacking great big sun nearby (at least one ) which is hot enough to heat up planets and moons.
An astronaut would shatter like Terminator 2 at 43K. So would Jayne.
But I still think Joss just made all this up without doing any research on either guns or physics, in which case the whole argument is moot.
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ascolti
Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:40 am Post subject: baby its cold outside. |
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I to think Joss made it up because it made sense to him at the time. But just for reference...
In space hot and cold are strangely referential terms. In basic terms, objects in space achieve a temperature based upon how efficient they are at absorbing solar radiation.
The formula is:
T = 277 K (1 AU/R)1/2
So objects are likely to be around 2.7k to whatever they can be heated up to.
But I’ve included a lovely link to cover the science.
http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/waw/mad/mad5.html
Given Mal’s fondness for hanging around the “outer planet’s” we’ll have to assume that this would be roughly further out or around where Mars is to us. Mars, even with its heavy green house CO2 atmosphere, only has an average surface temperate in the range of -87 to -5 °C. So even on Mars the gun would struggle to operate at temperatures below -30°C
http://solarsystem.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Mars&Display=Facts&System=Metric
From what I remember they were in relatively dark part space and hiding in the airlock at that. Hence very low temperatures and likelihood of severe frostbite |
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Shadowslance
Joined: 12 Oct 2005
Posts: 33
Location: Englewood, CO
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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| dougom wrote: |
I do know a bit about guns, so I'll add a some...
Mal's gun is shaped like a revolver, but it seems to use clips. This is odd, to say the least.
Mal's gun seems to fire without recoil, but seems to fire projectiles. If I were forced to guess, I would say that the boxy thing hanging under the "revolver" portion is some kind of anti-recoil device. In a world with inertial dampers, how hard can it be to damp recoil? Heck, for all I know, the energy released by the gunpowder is channeled back in and helps in keeping the capacitor (or whatever it is making that whirring noise) charged. Who knows.
I have never seen Mal's gun emit smoke, although it goes "bang." But I could just be mis-remembering. An interesting thought is that perhaps it fires projectiles, but uses some kind of magnetic induction accelarator to impart speed to the bullets, which would explain the electrical noise. Not a "rail gun," but just a simple (but powerful and compact) electromagnet. Just a thought.
(However, in "Heart of Gold," Mal has all the usual gun-cleaning accoutrement out, which would tend to indicate a gunpower weapon. Similarly, Jane is shown with gun-cleaning stuff out in "Ariel." But Jane has a lot of guns.)
Zoe's gun seems to be a pretty simple sawed-off shotgun; in "Serenity" (the movie) it clearly ejects shotgun shells. It also seems to be recoiless, at least when she fires it in Serenity (the Pilot) in the scene where she is laying on her back, firing at one of Patience's goons. I would say it's a 30-ought; a big gun for a woman, but Zoe is a big woman.
Vera, in "Our Mrs. Reynolds," performs impossibly. It is actually stated in the episode that "she needs air around her to fire," which is why the put her in the space suit. Perfectly reasonable for a projectile weapon using gunpower. However, Vera is fired more than once. How the heck can she shoot after the faceplate of the suit is already blown out?
The gun that River aims at Mal in "Serenity" (the movie) looks like a Glock (N.B., a gun that is mostly plastic). It's fairly big, and looks bigger than their 9mm to me--perhaps the new .40 caliber; a pretty big gun for "a 90 pound girl," but Glocks are fairly light due to the plastic (and thus are popular with law enforcement in the U.S.--you can have good stopping power, but it's not as heavy as, say, a sterling-silver Colt .45). And hey, who knew that Glock Inc. came on the Ark ships? Maybe they were bought out by Blue Sun? |
Not to mention that in "The Message" the gun that Tracey uses at the end when he is holding Kaylee hostage is a HK VP-70Z a very nice pistol if you can ever get your on one. It's definately a slug thrower. |
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cuardin
Joined: 07 Feb 2006
Posts: 15
Location: Birkastan.Stockholm.Sweden
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | In space hot and cold are strangely referential terms. |
Pretty much. Only matter can have temperature. Now, space isn't perfect vaccum, but close, so the matter available is pretty much neglectable. But one could define "temperature" in space as the equilibrium temperature an object, when shadowed perfectly from the suns direct rays attains. And that would be a fairly low temperature.
| Quote: | | An astronaut would shatter like Terminator 2 at 43K. So would Jayne. |
Well, that is the issue with making tings space-worthy. You have to build them so they don't. But to the original point: Vera is probably build mostly of steel, Delrin and similar materials. They are not made to withstand such extreme temperatures, and the shrinkage induced by the change in temperature might mean that the gun simply falls appart or becomes so brittle it explodes when firing it.
If that were the reason, then the fact that the space-suit breaks after the first shot isn't a problem. The gun would remain within operating temperature for many seconds after being exposed to vaccume and that is enough for the subsequent gun-shots. |
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Rednax
Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 3
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 10:25 am Post subject: Blake's 7 |
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One thing you missed in your article on Blake's Seven: Joss Whedon was in the UK at boarding school (Winchester College?) when it was on BBC1, so he may well have seen B7 during this time.
Also you failled to mention [Mod edit - spoiler deleted] (though I guess you may have wanted to avoid spoilers). |
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Titiwai
Joined: 04 Jul 2006
Posts: 3
Location: Aotearoa NZ
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| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the review on B7. IMHO the greatest Sci Fi ever. I am sorry, but Firefly comes second.... 
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