One of my biggest struggles that has prevented me from playing a Firefly/Serenity game up to this point has been developing something that would find the bal;ance between maintaining the feel of teh show while finding its own storyline and cast.  

Finally, this last week, an idea hit me.  I decided to run teh game in teh period leading up to the War for Unification.  The Alliance, while gaining strength has not taken over the verse and is much weaker than it was in the show.  The browncoats haven't formed yet, or at least aren't well known.  

Now I'm trying to think of episode ideas for the game.  The crew will be a band of criminals on a ship.  One of the characters (brother of the captain) stole some money from a crime boss (a younger Adelei Niska, htough he is not aware of that).  Another player, a hired gun new to the crew was sent to capture that player for Niska.  She's been in indentured servitude to him for some time.  Though usually strictly business, she's puzzled about this one.  On one hand, she knows the dangers of Niska, but on teh other, she sees this as a potential way out from under his thumb.

Anyhow, got any ideas for gaming in the pre-war verse?  I figure the core planets are a bit less civilized.  A movement is building to let the Alliance take over though and provide clean, safe living to all.  The adventures will probably take place in or around the core (though trips to the rim are possible, it isn't as necessary to avoid the eyes of the Alliance yet.)

1) no reavers yet.

2) colonization wars - competing colonies on the same planet/moon trying for some kind of resource - water is always a good one in the old west, though mining rights are pretty solid too.

3) the characters can get caught in some kind of political setup that the alliance is building - they encourage piracy and crime of all kinds in the rim, giving them an excuse to come in and "stablize" the region.

4) the beginnings of the browncoats - weapons smuggling / theft from alliance supply posts. dangerous but lucrative crime...

5) a corporation, unfettered by inconvenient laws, sets up shop on the rim and does whatever it feels like - and one of the character's families is caught in the middle.

Since Firefly is a paper-thinly veiled take on post Civil War, maybe it would be possible to model the antebellum period?

I think the biggest hurdle would be to find a way to reproduce "natives." Maybe before serious breakthroughs in terraforming that allowed for more drastic changes the norm was humanoforming - permanent biomedical changes that allowed humans to survive in hostile environments. The first settlers on these worlds would then be adapted in drastic ways (for example, lung capacity increases - and the corresponding enlarged torso - in an atmosphere low in oxygen, etc).

In order to keep continuity to "present day" you'd have to then eliminate the first settlers (the easist way would be to hit them with the one two punch of accelerated lifespans due to the changes and the ever expanding terraforming businesses from the inner core). But, as in the pre-Civil War US, pushing the "natives" out would be part and parcel of advancement.