The Weapons On Firefly.

[Slept with ghost]

I was watching a few episodes last night and something became unclear to me. During the episode war stories Zoe hands Wash a revolver and says it has six shots drop it when its out. She also carried a shotgun in that episode which seemed to fire shells. This made me wonder though. Are the weapons on firefly lasers that look like modern day guns? Or do they use a mix of lasers and bullets?

[phee]

I was watching a few episodes last night and something became unclear to me. During the episode war stories Zoe hands Wash a revolver and says it has six shots drop it when its out. She also carried a shotgun in that episode which seemed to fire shells. This made me wonder though. Are the weapons on firefly lasers that look like modern day guns? Or do they use a mix of lasers and bullets?

A mixture... there is an episode where a guy has an actual Laser... they are supposed to be expensive, while regular guns not so much

[Slept with ghost]

I kind of thought as much. thank you

[CixWicked]

Important little fun fact (Don't know how many poeple noticed).

In the movie (Serenity) Inara actually uses a Bow and Arrow during the seige by the reavers. According to the special features, that was edited in later, and initially I believe she used a gun of some sort.

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Using firearms in future type genres is pretty common. There comes a point where it is not economically reasonable to move to the next generation weapon (flint lock rifles were around a long time until replaced). The same happened with the bolt action rifle. it was around for a long time while it was technically possible to build self loading weapons. The thought was that bolt action rifles were cheaper and did not waste as much ammo.

Now for the darker side of the issue. In many cases, humans are not "worth" as much as the weapons and dont last long in combat, so why give them a very expensive item? Look at the movie "Starship Troopers"... very far in the future, but they are attacking those giant bugs with rifles (different from the book i know). Humans with rifles may not last long against Giant Bugs, but the leaders dont care as long as they dont run out of humans... over populated planets sometimes need this (in the future).

In serenity/firefly, people use common weapons that do the job. Firearms have a usefull shelf life of over 400 years. (they are still finding muskets in attics in New england that work just fine after sitting there since the late 1600s.

Another example of futuristic societies using older weapons is in the Desert Punk (Sunobuzo) series. They dig up old arms and copy them. Cheaper than designing and building their own weapons designs. This is like the pakistanis in Peshwar who can make a copy of just about any firearm in two weeks or less.

[Goth Brooks]

Firearms have a usefull shelf life of over 400 years. (they are still finding muskets in attics in New england that work just fine after sitting there since the late 1600s.

Useless bit of info: My father found a small black box while diving off the coast of St Thomas, USVI. Turns out it was a hardened lump of tar with two sea pistols preserved. They were owned by a dutch officer, about 500yrs old. After being thoroughly cleaned, they cocked and dry fired beautifully. (Though we didn't dare test the strength of the barrel with actual shot and powder).

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I'm in shock i don't know the "definitive" answer to this one off the top of my head since I've read TWO books on firefly. Subject was never actually discussed specifically though as i can remember.

The consensus above seems correct to me though. For sure there were "advanced" weapons used that looked like traditional firearms. If the more conventional looking weapons (such as mals revolver) are ACTUALLY "traditional" firearms I'm not sure I've ever read any specifics about.

Somehow i get the impression that they intentionally, for "underdog" effect have (generally) the Alliance (the bad guys) seem to use the high-tech weapons and the good guys (The Independents) use the traditional weapons.

[Slept with ghost]

brown coats.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

brown coats.

Yeah.

[Head Wreck]

for the firefly games run here we use older looking weapons. i'm after wood furniture (metric sized) for a FAL rifle atm (stirling arms built the L1 in imperial demensions, it makes a differance) and if i decide to have a go at sniping with the very tight power regulations a mauser K98 tempts for browncoat or (outer rim).

in the series and film theres a lot of things modern seen in war flashbacks, the browncoats use G36K carbines and the alliance troops use the Enfield L85A1 with black furnature (quite rare, i suspect its old re used prop stock from "darkangel", the last time i saw black enfields aside from the odd palace guard when i was invited some years back)

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

I wonder what the import laws about wood stocks for metric FAL rifles are in the UK. It would be no trouble at all to find the furniture around here.

P.S. I really want an IMBEL gear logo FAL (with a congo barrel and side folding stock)... not that I have been thinking about this much (I do have some magazines I got in a trade though... so might as well go all the way)

[Head Wreck]

the furniture, fine.

any part whick helps it go bang, a big no no no no. though i do know one or two people using real pins in their airsofts (as the originals weren't upto the abuse)