OT Which would you Choose

[dogscoff]

Yeah, they do lose, but I thought I maybe could trick you into finishing the book=-)

As for the Firefly-planet thing... I guess Joss Whedon created the Firefly's star system using FQM mod=-) Since all FTL travel, which is critical to almost all sci-fi, boils down to little more than handwavium anyway, why not handwave other details like the star system's structure? Especially if it prevents you from having to invent and maintain some convoluted system of warp drives, hyperspace or wormholes.

Basically, they are sacrificing some scientific credibility (something which is INCREDIBLY hard to attain in sci-fi anyway - how many sci-fi shows/ films/ books can you honestly name that a pedantic physicist couldn't pick holes in?) for storytelling and accessibility. This is something TV sci-fi has done since Kirk beamed down to his first polystyrene planet. Call it poetic license. As I said before, Firefly is character driven, the futuristic setting is nothing more than a pretty painted backdrop behind the actors.

Also, we don't yet have a detailled map of any solar system other than our own (and some of that is still inconclusive). We have models and speculation about the shape of other star systems, but most of the exoplanets we have found so far indicate that at least some planetary systems are very very different to this one. For all we know, a system with hundreds of terraformable worlds could be entirely possible.

Buffy is well worth watching, but like many of the best TV series you need to give it time. Like most of the best shows it takes about a series to settle into itself, and after that you can really begin warmng to it. Firefly is unusual in that it was brilliant within about 2 episodes. We'll never know if series 2 would have lived up to the promise of series 1.